“My Better Years” is a song written by Hazel Dickens, the pioneering bluegrass singer and songwriter from West Virginia. It appeared on “Hazel & Alice,” her acclaimed 1973 album with Alice Gerrard.
The lyric is a wistful reckoning — a woman looking back on the better years of her life, the youth and love she gave to a relationship that did not return the gift. That clear-eyed view of a woman’s experience was characteristic of Dickens, who wrote with unusual honesty about hard work, hard times, and the lives of working women.
“My Better Years” became one of Dickens’s most admired compositions, recorded by a long line of artists including Dolly Parton, Laurie Lewis, and the Seldom Scene. It stands among the songs that established her as one of the most important songwriters bluegrass has produced.
