http://www.sfbg.com/AandE/35/27/ae_opener.html Branded man Merle Haggard is just another free-thinking, tough-as-nails, ex-con Okie genius hot-wired into the soul of the Central Valley. He's come out of the cold with a new album and a whole lot of energy. <snip> Culture clash In 1969, Haggard recorded "Okie from Muskogee," a hilarious jab at the counterculture that opened with the memorable lines "We don't smoke marijuana in Muskogee / We don't take our trips on LSD / We don't burn our draft cards down on Main Street / 'Cause we like livin' right bein' free."
Haggard's music rarely crossed over from the country charts – "Okie from Muskogee" reached 41 on the pop charts – but his reputation did. "Okie," and songs that followed, such as "Fightin' Side of Me," "Soldier's Last Letter," and "I Wonder if They Ever Think of Me," made Haggard a symbol of flag-waving, love-it-or-leave-it patriots. California's hippies – a number of them, with varying degrees of discomfort, fans of his music – were listening. Gram Parsons asked Haggard to produce an album, and Haggard refused. According to the liner notes on the reissue of Parsons's GP/Grievous Angel, Haggard dismissed Parsons as a hippie lacking a salt-of-the-earth mentality. The Youngbloods, a popular San Francisco band, wrote and performed "Proud to Be a Hippie from Olema" to the tune of "Okie from Muskogee."
When, as the story goes, Haggard wouldn't grant permission for the group to record the song, another Bay Area musician, Nick Gravenites, penned "I'll Fix Your Flat Tire Merle," with a chorus that went, "I'll fix your flat tire Merle / Don't you get your country-pickin' fingers all covered with erl / You're a honky, I know / But Merle you've got soul / And I'll change your flat tire Merle."
Haggard later said he was blindsided by the commotion he'd caused, claiming in a 1974 interview that the song was a put-on and that "Muskogee was about the only place we didn't smoke it."
But the song was about more than dope: it weighed in on Vietnam, free speech, and political protest. Haggard may have been a lifelong rebel – sometimes with a cause, sometimes without – but like most blue-collar white Americans of the day, he had deeply conservative roots.
Haggard, of course, did nothing but confound those who tried to label him or his work. In the early '70s he recorded "Irma Jackson," about the social obstacles undermining an interracial relationship – a song Capitol was reluctant to release. He also penned "The Immigrant," an uplifting song about Mexican illegals that begins: "The almighty peso / Gives him the say so / To dry up the river / Whenever there's crops to bring in / Is this a good neighbor / That takes all his labor / Then runs him back over the river 'till he's needed again."
The thread running through Haggard's life seems to start in his DNA rather than in one ideology or another. He's pitted rich against poor, men against women, flag wavers against protesters. Most consistently, though, he's launched himself – right or wrong – against any authority that happens to get in his way. "I'm a rebel," he says. "I was born a rebel, and I'm still a rebel today. My writing comes from conflict."
These days he's convinced that the individual is getting steamrollered. "I cannot go for the double standards in America," he says. "We accept certain things that we know are outright lies. In my own way I've been trying to poke fun at the hypocritical way America has seemed to accept."
He ticks off a laundry list of social ills – intrusive police, government spying, environmental damage, official hypocrisy – by way of illustration. "I'm telling you," he says, "I've been everywhere in the last 30 years, and things have changed. We've lost a lot."
Haggard's delivery might overwhelm his message – which can take some untangling – but he's got legitimate points to make. Still, if you step back 30 years and listen to "Jesus, Take a Hold," which he wrote and recorded in 1970, the lyrics have a familiar ring: "This world has never been in this awful shape it's in / And people scorn the things our leaders do / It's time a prayer was spoken from the heart of every man / Jesus take a hold and lead us through."
On this day, early in March, Haggard hasn't invoked the lord. Nor, apparently, does he place much stock in elected officials. But he's still the stranger "out in the cold" whom he wrote about in 1967's "Branded Man," haunted by a past the world won't forgive. The song rocketed up the charts to number one – which tells you something about Haggard, America, and Americans. It's hard to imagine that any of us are much different today.
Michael Pugliese