Surburbanation

Merle spoke about and told the stories of folks who never quite got anything out of life except the hands they were dealt. These were people at the edges of society marginalized and swept under the rug, knowing that for them success was an always an illusion dancing in front of them they hadn’t the slightest chance of catching.

Haggard’s ‘prison’ songs could be seen as metaphors for the entrapping loneliness of modern life, people feeling trapped in their lives and caught up in forces beyond their control. “I’m a Lonesome Fugitive,” his first number one single, echoed this theme: “Down every road, there’s always one more city; I’m on the run, the highway is my home.” In just over a dozen words, Merle captured the rootlessness, the restlessness, the angst of America of the 60s.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejmDQp13YII


And so the course was set for the all the wonderful songs that followed, people living with and trying to deal with the mental and physical constraints of weaknesses, addictions, and heartbreak. Merle lived them all, and crafted those existential situations into tunes and melodies that all of us could relate to. ‪#‎merlehaggard‬ ‪#‎thehag‬ (more to come)