Satin Sheets

Jeanne Pruett's 1973 single "Satin Sheets" is not a Great Tear-jerker. In fact I find it hard to tolerate for more than thirty seconds.

The singer's lackluster screech, coupled with a maddening, mattress-store-jingle melody and lyrics credited to one John Volinkaty (Satin sheets to lie on/Satin pillows to cry on/Still, I'm not happy, don't you see?) are a bitter aural cocktail that quickly evaporates. It's unoriginal, too--two years earlier, Wanda Jackson had charted with "Fancy Satin Pillows," which lamented, identically, the direct correlation between pricey bedclothes and loneliness.

Jeanne Pruett's one and only hit, "Satin Sheets" topped the Country charts for three weeks and crossed over to the Pop charts for a spell at #28, and earned her two CMA Award nominations and permanent employment at the Grand Ole Opry.

On May, 26, 1973, "Satin Sheets" wrested "What's Your Mama's Name" (thirteen-year-old Tanya Tucker's choir-backed anthem about a man falsely accused of child molestation) for the #1 Country spot. The CMA gave Loretta Lynn her umpteenth award and showered Charlie Rich, the Silver Fox, with praise for "Behind Closed Doors." The next year, the impeccably-produced LP Jolene came out, the Opry moved from the Ryman tabernacle to the Opryland theme park (necessitating the increased production of Outlaw country records), and Billy "Crash" Craddock recorded what may be the worst country track ever, "Rub It In," a song about sexy sunblock application. (Historically significant, however, as an inspiration for Jimmy Buffet's beach-minstrelsy, the Weekend at Bernie's movies, "Kokomo," and a long-running ad campaign for Glade Air Fresheners.)

Many songs of 1973 and environs were better and worse than "Satin Sheets," but if I were a deaf person with the album in hand, I'd never believe it. I would look at the cover and know an exemplary tear-jerker. Mysterious, majestic, and most suitable for framing, the cardboard sleeve of Satin Sheets is heavier than any stretch of canvas I ever paid to see. That vapid twist in the pink ruffles, not terribly attractive, staring at nothing, leaning on that pillow which is supported by nothing...Slightly frumpy and unfulfilled, clutching a photo--of whom? If she a mistress, a kept woman, it is a photo of her lover, who is driving his kids to the zoo just now. Or if she is a wife, and she's so miserable, it must be someone other than her husband. Her left hand is twisted just so; if there is a ring there, it's hidden in folds of chiffon.

What of the comforter hanging behind her? Are we to believe that Pruett lives in some strange situation were her walls are padded with pink blankets? Is it pure symbolic background, like the golden celestial field that encompasses Mary in medieval renderings? Or just the flattening of perspectival space, an unwitting nod to Cubism? The satin pillow defies gravity, so it makes sense that Jeanne Pruett is lying horizontally on a vertical blanket.

The bizarre composition--clearly a low-budget affair--surrounding Pruett's earnest modeling of drag queen lingerie, might be overlooked if a great song accompanied it. Best that this picture sell a dismal and derivative product, and best that Miss Satin Sheets is seen and not heard.