56 Years Ago Today, Merle Haggard Was at No. 1 With the Album (And Title Track) That Became a Cultural Flashpoint

On October 10, 1969, outlaw country extraordinaire Merle Haggard and his band The Strangers recorded the first live album of his career, Okie From Muskogee, at the Civic Center in Muskogee, Oklahoma. The album’s title track hit the charts the very next day, with millions of small-town Middle Americans finally seeing their own values reflected in a cultural landscape dominated with anti-Vietnam War protests at the time. The song’s immense popularity catapulted Okie From Muskogee to the top of the country albums charts on this day (May 22) in 1970.

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Including other honky-tonk staples like “Mama Tried” and “Workin’ Man Blues”, Okie From Muskogee became one of 16 chart-topping LPs for the Hag.

Crossing over to number 46 on the pop charts, it took home Album of the Year honors from both the Country Music Association and the Academy of Country Music. The title track also won the CMA Award for Single of the Year, and Haggard was named Top Male Vocalist of 1970.

Merle Haggard’s Evolving Perspective

To this day, “Okie From Muskogee” remains a patriotic anthem for those who “like living right, and being free.” However, Merle Haggard’s true intentions are harder to pin down. Before his death in April 2016, the Country Music Hall of Famer offered varying explanations of the song he co-wrote with drummer Roy Edward Burris.

Initially, Haggard claimed, he meant “Okie From Muskogee” as satire. “But then people latched onto it, and it really turned into this song that looked into the mindset of people so opposite of who and where we were,” he said. “My dad’s people. He’s from Muskogee.”

James Francis Haggard, who died of a brain hemorrhage when Merle was 9, hailed from Checotah, Oklahoma, roughly a 25-mile drive from Muskogee.

However, the California-born legend said in another interview that he wrote “Okie From Muskogee” after becoming disillusioned with seeing anti-Vietnam War protests all across the country.

“When I was in prison, I knew what it was like to have freedom taken away. Freedom is everything… Here were these [servicemen] going over there and dying for a cause — we don’t even know what it was really all about — and here are these young kids, that were free, b—hing about it,” Haggard said. “There’s something wrong with that and with [disparaging] those poor guys…  I wrote the song to support those soldiers.”

[RELATED: I Love Merle Haggard—Here Are 3 Songs That Carry That Same Honky-Tonk Spirit]

Finally, in a 2010 interview with American Songwriter, Haggard admitted he performed the song through a different lens from the one he wrote it through 40 years earlier.

“I play it now with a different projection,” he said. “It’s a different song now. I’m different now.”

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