Sing Me Back Home

First my apologies for being lax and lazy. Opening my blog for this entry, I realize it's been quite a while since I last put pen to paper. To be accurate, put digits on keyboard, but that sounds less literate and less alliterative.

The impetus for this blog was the passing of Merle Haggard. A death also spurred the last blog. That is weird. Time to find a new inspiration for my muse? Though I like the phrase "minion of the macabre muse", I should focus on more positive inspiration. My thoughts, now distracted, wander various paths. Get ye behind me deities of digression!

I've had mixed feelings about Merle since 1969. The Byrds, Grateful Dead, The Flying Burrito Brothers and others, introduced me to the wealth of songs from Haggard. In 1969, Okie from Muskogee hit the airways. The song scorned my generation.

Then I heard the stories about Haggard's distain towards those he referred to as "filthy, long-haired hippies." Roger McGuinn and Gram Parsons wanted him to produce  Sweetheart of the Rodeo; he refused. Others asked him to sing on their records, join a tour, but Merle ignored the young upstarts.

I was a big demonstration-goer back then. Whatever the cause, angry protesters could count on my support. I epitomized a scene from Brando's The Wild One: "Hey Johnny, what are you rebelling against?"  Ans. "What have you got?"

New York City May 1970, about 200 construction workers attacked students protesting the Kent State shootings. Dubbed, the Hard Hat Riot, Nixon's Silent Majority, touted them as heroes. I experienced the same during many demonstrations. Spit, bottles, cans, assorted detritus were hurled in my direction. An Us vs. Them mentality ensued. I placed Merle Haggard in the Them camp.

Despite this, the beauty of his songs spoke to me. Over the next few years, Willie and Waylon joined Jerry Jeff in Austin, and the divisiveness lessened. The lines
between country and rock blurred. Music transcended political and sociological ideologies on both sides.

Unfortunately, hate and intolerance seem endemic to mankind. Today the same schism rears its ugly head. The terms liberal and conservative have replaced straights and freaks, but the animosity and prejudice remain the same. Hopefully, music will blur our partisan principles and one day we can join hands and sing Kumbaya, or at least Momma Tried.  As ever - BB

"Take me away and turn back the years. Sing me back home before I die." Merle Haggard, Sing Me Back Home