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The Scoop 4-8
When a country song comes to life
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His life was a country music song.
As a boy, his family home was made from an abandoned train car. As an adult, he spent time in prison, was married five times, and embraced the hours spent drinking women off his mind.
He was country music legend Merle Haggard, who died Wednesday at age 79.
My first experience listening to Merle came, fittingly enough, after my parents divorced. My dad, in one of his bold life decisions, bought a jukebox and loaded it with country music songs.
Dad was never a country music fan before, but perhaps he thought he might get the house back and get the dog back if he listened to enough country songs. I'm not sure.
So our jukebox was filled with the likes of Glen Campbell, Conway Twitty and Merle Haggard. For a guy who had always listened to Fleetwood Mac and The Beatles, this was some change for dad.
For me too. Thus my acquaintance with Merle Haggard began. I got to learn of his troubles with the law, his passion for drinking, and most of all I got to hear his melodic baritone voice which was as smooth as they come.
His lyrics were profound in their simplicity. His songs looked to inspire through everyday struggles. His topics were as American as buying shoes for the kids and fighting for our country.
And drinking was one of his recurring themes.

As Haggard famously put it:
"Ain't no woman gonna change the way I think,
I think I'll just stay here and drink."

On another song he offered:
"The one true friend I thought I'd found,
Tonight the bottle let me down."

When it came to romance, Haggard theorized in rhyme:
"We still don't have what you and I once had,
No, it's not love, but it's not bad."

The guitar, piano, and female backing vocals enhanced his twangy message. It was his music that allowed him to overcome an early life of crime and express himself in ways Americans wanted to hear. Led Zeppelin frontman Robert Plant once said, "I can't imagine any job that allows you to be more expressive than a rock n' roll singer."
Well, a country singer would have to be on even footing as Haggard sung his way to a presidential pardon and even made the cover of Time magazine on his way to recording 38 No. 1 hits.
Haggard once sung about wanting to throw his bills out the window and catch a train to another town. He's left this world of ours and made his way to another town, but not without a songbook for us to cherish.
He was a man who touched hearts and left memories in a Ford truck kind of way.
Standard editor James Clark can be reached at 473-2191.