Songfacts®:

• Not even the Mississippi River can keep long-distance lovers Loretta Lynn and Conway Twitty apart in their third chart-topping country duet. Louisiana Lynn vows to swim across the river while Mississippi Twitty says he'll give up fishing and brave the alligator-infested waters to meet her on the other side. (Twitty really was a Mississippi native, but Lynn was born in Kentucky.) The Cajun-infused tune was written by Nashville singer-songwriters Becki Bluefield and Jim Owen.
• Twitty and Lynn weren't really romantic partners, but they had a successful professional relationship that included 11 albums, five #1 Country hits, and one Grammy (for "After The Fire Is Gone"). Throughout the '70s, they frequently took home prizes from the Country Music Association and the Academy of Country Music for their duets.
• Lynn's husband, Doolittle, suggested the song to the duo. "Doo loved Conway," she told International Musician. "We'd been out on tour a couple weeks and we'd come home. We walked in and my husband was sitting at the desk. He didn't usually come into the office. He says, 'I've got a hit for you.' And Conway says, 'Oh, my god, he's got a song for us?!' It was called 'Louisiana Woman, Mississippi Man' and it was a #1 hit. We kind of listened to Doo from then on."
• Garth Brooks and (future wife) Trisha Yearwood sang this as a tribute to Loretta Lynn at the 26th Annual Kennedy Center Honors Awards in 2003.
• During a White Stripes show at New York City's Hammersmith Ballroom in 2003, guest Loretta Lynn sang this with the group's lead singer, Jack White. The Stripes had dedicated their 2001 album, White Blood Cells, to the country singer and recorded another Lynn tune, "Rated 'X'," as the flipside to "Hotel Yorba."
• This was used in the video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.
• Alan Jackson and Martina McBride recorded this for the 2010 album Coal Miner's Daughter: A Tribute to Loretta Lynn.