Editing Merle Haggard (section)

==="Okie from Muskogee" and "The Fightin' Side of Me"===
In 1969, Haggard and the Strangers released "[[Okie from Muskogee (song)|Okie From Muskogee]]", with lyrics ostensibly reflecting the singer's pride in being from [[Middle America (United States)|Middle America]], where people are conventionally patriotic and traditionally conservative.<ref>Malone, Bill, ''Country Music U.S.A'', 2nd rev. ed. (University of Texas Press, Austin, 2002), p. 371.</ref> American president [[Richard Nixon]] wrote an appreciative letter to Haggard upon his hearing of the song, and would go on to invite Haggard to perform at the White House several times.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Berlau |first=John |date=1996-08-19 |title=The battle over "Okie from Muskogee" |url=https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/weekly-standard/the-battle-over-quotokie-from-muskogee |access-date=2023-10-22 |website=Washington Examiner |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Troy |first=Tevi |date=2016-04-07 |title=When Merle Haggard Played at the Nixon White House |url=https://observer.com/2016/04/when-merle-haggard-played-at-the-nixon-white-house/ |access-date=2023-10-22 |website=Observer |language=en-US}}</ref>

In the ensuing years, Haggard gave varying statements regarding whether he intended the song as a humorous satire or a serious political statement in support of conservative values.<ref>{{cite news |last=Chilton |first=Martin |date=April 7, 2016 |title=Merle Haggard: 'Sometimes I Wish I Hadn't Written Okie from Muskogee' |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/music/artists/merle-haggard-sometimes-i-wish-i-hadnt-written-okie-from-muskoge/ |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220111/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/music/artists/merle-haggard-sometimes-i-wish-i-hadnt-written-okie-from-muskoge/ |archive-date=January 11, 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |newspaper=[[The Daily Telegraph|The Telegraph]] |location=London |access-date=April 7, 2016 }}{{cbignore}}</ref> In a 2001 interview, Haggard called the song a "documentation of the uneducated that lived in America at the time".{{sfn|Fox|2004|p=51}} However, he made several other statements suggesting that he meant the song seriously. On the ''[[Bob Edwards Show]]'', he said, "I wrote it when I recently got out of the joint. I knew what it was like to lose my freedom, and I was getting really mad at these protesters. They didn't know anything more about the war in Vietnam than I did. I thought how my dad, who was from Oklahoma, would have felt. I felt I knew how those boys fighting in Vietnam felt."<ref name=kaufman>{{cite book |last=Kaufman |first=Will |date=2009 |title=American Culture in the 1970s |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8vCqBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA116 |publisher=Edinburgh University Press |pages=115–116 |isbn=9780748621422}}</ref> In the country music documentary series ''Lost Highway'', he elaborated: "My dad passed away when I was nine, and I don't know if you've ever thought about somebody you've lost and you say, 'I wonder what so-and-so would think about this?' I was drivin' on [[Interstate 40]] and I saw a sign that said '19 Miles to Muskogee', while at the same time listening to radio shows of ''[[The World Tomorrow (radio and television)|The World Tomorrow]]'' hosted by [[Garner Ted Armstrong]].<ref name="Chapelle2007">{{cite book|first=Peter |last=La Chapelle|title=Proud to Be an Okie: Cultural Politics, Country Music, and Migration to Southern California|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sbkwDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA192|date=3 April 2007|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=978-0-520-24889-2|page=192}}</ref> Muskogee was always referred to in my childhood as 'back home.' So I saw that sign and my whole childhood flashed before my eyes and I thought, 'I wonder what dad would think about the youthful uprising that was occurring at the time, the [[Janis Joplin]]s... I understood 'em, I got along with it, but what if he was to come alive at this moment? And I thought, what a way to describe the kind of people in America that are still sittin' in the center of the country sayin', 'What is goin' on on these campuses?'", as it was the subject of this Garner Ted Armstrong radio program. "And a week or so later, I was listening to Garner Ted Armstrong, and Armstrong was saying how the smaller colleges in smaller towns don't seem to have any problems.  And I wondered if Muskogee had a college, and it did, and they hadn't had any trouble - no racial problems and no dope problems. The whole thing hit me in two minutes, and I did one line after another and got the whole thing done in 20 minutes."<ref name="Chapelle2007" /><ref>{{Cite episode |title=Beyond Nashville |series=Lost Highway: The History of American Country |first=Merle |last=Haggard |network=[[BBC]] |date=March 8, 2003 |season=1 |number=3 |language=en}}</ref> In the ''[[American Masters]]'' documentary about him, he said, "That's how I got into it with the hippies... I thought they were unqualified to judge America, and I thought they were lookin' down their noses at something that I cherished very much, and it pissed me off. And I thought, 'You sons of bitches, you've never been restricted away from this great, wonderful country, and yet here you are in the streets bitchin' about things, protesting about a war that they didn't know any more about than I did. They weren't over there fightin' that war any more than I was."<ref name=AmericanMasters />

Haggard began performing the song in concert in 1969 and was astounded at the reaction it received:

{{blockquote|The Haggard camp knew they were on to something. Everywhere they went, every show, "Okie" did more than prompt enthusiastic applause. There was an unanticipated adulation racing through the crowds now, standing ovations that went on and on and sometimes left the audience and the band members alike teary-eyed. Merle had somehow stumbled upon a song that expressed previously inchoate fears, spoke out loud gripes and anxieties otherwise only whispered, and now people were using his song, were using ''him'', to connect themselves to these larger concerns and to one another.{{sfn|Cantwell|2013|page=151}}}}

The studio version, which was mellower than the usually raucous live-concert versions, topped the country charts in 1969 and remained there for a month.{{sfn|Cantwell|2013|page=152}} It also hit number 41 on the ''Billboard'' all-genre singles chart, becoming Haggard's biggest hit up to that time, surpassed only by his 1973 crossover Christmas hit, "[[If We Make It Through December]]", which peaked at number 28.<ref name=hagbillboardchartp1 /> "Okie from Muskogee" is also generally described as Haggard's [[signature song]].<ref>{{cite web|title=Top 10 Merle Haggard Songs|url=http://tasteofcountry.com/merle-haggard-songs|website=Tasteofcountry.com|publisher=[[Townsquare Media|Taste of Country]]|access-date=April 7, 2016|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160103032651/http://tasteofcountry.com/merle-haggard-songs|archive-date=January 3, 2016}}</ref>

On his next single, "[[The Fightin' Side of Me]]", released by his record company in 1970 over Haggard's objections, Haggard's lyrics stated that he did not mind the counterculture "switchin' sides and standin' up for what they believe in", but resolutely declared, "If you don't love it, leave it!" In May 1970, Haggard explained to John Grissom of ''[[Rolling Stone]]'', "I don't like their views on life, their filth, their visible self-disrespect, y'know. They don't give a shit what they look like or what they smell like... What do they have to offer humanity?"{{sfn|Cantwell|2013|p=154}} In a 2003 interview with ''[[No Depression (magazine)|No Depression]]'' magazine, Haggard said, "I had different views in the '70s. As a human being, I've learned [more]. I have more culture now. I was dumb as a rock when I wrote 'Okie From Muskogee'. That's being honest with you at the moment, and a lot of things that I said [then] I sing with a different intention now. My views on marijuana have totally changed. I think we were brainwashed and I think anybody that doesn't know that needs to get up and read and look around, get their own information. It's a cooperative government project to make us think marijuana should be outlawed."<ref>{{cite web|last=McLenan|first=Andy|url=http://nodepression.com/article/merle-haggard-branded-man|title=Merle Haggard – Branded man|publisher=nodepression.com|date=October 31, 2003|access-date=April 6, 2016}}</ref>

Haggard had wanted to follow "Okie from Muskogee" with "[[Irma Jackson]]", a song that dealt with an interracial romance between a white man and an African American woman. His producer, [[Ken Nelson (United States record producer)|Ken Nelson]], discouraged him from releasing it as a single.<ref name="autogenerated1962" /> Jonathan Bernstein recounts, "Hoping to distance himself from the harshly right-wing image he had accrued in the wake of the hippie-bashing "Muskogee", Haggard wanted to take a different direction and release "Irma Jackson" as his next single... When the Bakersfield, California, native brought the song to his record label, executives were reportedly appalled. In the wake of "Okie", Capitol Records was not interested in complicating Haggard's conservative, blue-collar image."<ref name=RS>{{cite magazine|last=Bernstein|first=Jonathan|title=Flashback: Merle Haggard Reluctantly Unveils 'The Fightin' Side of Me'|magazine=Rolling Stone|date=December 23, 2014| url=https://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/flashback-merle-haggard-reluctantly-unveils-the-fightin-side-of-me-20141223| access-date = April 7, 2016}}</ref>

After "The Fightin' Side of Me" was released instead, Haggard later commented to ''[[The Wall Street Journal]]'', "People are narrow-minded. Down South they might have called me a nigger lover."{{sfn|Cantwell|2013|p=162}} In a 2001 interview, Haggard stated that Nelson, who was also head of the country division at Capitol at the time, never interfered with his music, but "this one time he came out and said, 'Merle, I don't believe the world is ready for this yet.' ... And he might have been right. I might've canceled out where I was headed in my career."<ref name="autogenerated1962" /><ref name=RS />

"Okie From Muskogee", "The Fightin' Side of Me", and "I Wonder If They Think of Me" (Haggard's 1973 song about an American [[POW]] in Vietnam) were hailed as anthems of the [[silent majority]], and have been recognized as part of a recurring patriotic trend in American country music that also includes [[Charlie Daniels]]' "In America" and [[Lee Greenwood]]'s "[[God Bless the USA]]".<ref>{{cite news|last=Edwards|first=Joe|date=November 7, 1985|title=Country Music Salutes Old Glory|url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/1985/11/07/country-music-salutes-old-glory/|newspaper=[[Chicago Tribune]]|access-date=April 7, 2016}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|last=Dickinson|first=Chris|date=December 19, 2001|title=Response to Sept. 11 a Natural for Country Singers|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-dec-19-et-dickinson19-story.html|newspaper=[[Los Angeles Times]]|access-date=April 7, 2016}}</ref> Although [[Gordon Friesen]] of ''Broadside'' magazine criticized Haggard for his "[[John Birch Society|<nowiki>[</nowiki>John<nowiki>]</nowiki> Birch–type]] songs against war dissenters", Haggard was popular with college students in the early 1970s, not only because of the ironic use of his songs by [[counterculture of the 1960s|counterculture]] members, but also because his music was recognized as coming from an early country-folk tradition. Both "Okie from Muskogee" and "The Fightin' Side of Me" received extensive airplay on underground radio stations, and "Okie" was performed in concert by [[protest song|protest singer]]s [[Arlo Guthrie]] and [[Phil Ochs]].<ref name=kaufman />