I love Merle Haggard. It's true. I've loved that man since as long as I can remember. That's twoyearsold...as far as I can remember.
I grew up with Merle. Not literally, of course, but as long as I can remember having music in my life, Merle's been with me. On summer trips across the mountain, tucked into the hatchback of Mama's Datsun, my ear pressed against the popping speaker, my eyes closed and I sang to myself, sing me back home with the song my mama sa a ang....Daddy Frank played the guit tar and the French harp, sister played the ring ing tam bour ine....If we make it to De cem ber, everything's gonnabealright I know....
I turned 21 in prison doing life without parole. No one could steer me right but Mama tried.
Mama Tried. I love that song. It makes me laugh. It makes me cry. Isn't that what music's meant to do? For me, it is that way with Merle's songs. I've never been to prison--I've never even been arrested, thankyouverymuch--but I know almost every word to every song Merle's written about prison, and being a fugitive, bars--and bars, drinking and cheating, and, most of all, standing up and believing. I've never had gin, but I understand misery, and no Merle, I don't think they would mix too well....
His voice hasn't changed that much, and I don't think that his outlook really has either. I don't know that we'd agree on everything--especially my pacifist views (I read about some squirrely guy, Who claims, he just don't believe in fightin'. An' I wonder just how long,
The rest of us can count on bein' free...), but he values honesty and integrity, and so do I. Sometimes his rendition is different, but his words are still the same, and when I hear his songs now--the same songs I listened to thirty years ago (ohmygosh!) I feel them.
I know that you trust me to write things as they are...to give you my truth....to recreate things, just so. This, though, this is something I'm not sure I can explain.
I feel it when I hear bagpipes. It's a wholeness--like eating just enough but not too much. Like hugging someone you love more than life and having that person hug you back and love you that much too. My skin tingles and sometimes I grow goosebumps. Tears come, and I feel a bit embarrassed but mostly proud and full--complete. It's rare to feel complete in this big world. Have you ever felt homesick while sitting inside your own home? I have. What a lonely thing that is....but this is the opposite. I feel it when Bluegrass music catches my attention, as if by the crook of my arm, and makes me feel like part of a time longbeforeIwasborn. Do you see?
Merle Haggard played a concert at VCU's Mosque during the summer session of 1973. My mom was there, so was my Great-uncle Joey, my aunt Beth, and Barbara Mandrell. It's difficult for me to imagine, really. My mom before me. My mom before she was my mom. I was five years away. Her hair still hung halfway down her back and parted in the middle without bangs. I don't know if she'd changed majors yet, from nursing to education--a decision that set her life's course, perhaps more than any other. She'd marry my dad the following November--a decision that set my life's course too....
She and I were supposed to see Merle together last fall. My birthday present. Dinner and Merle. How cool is that? Cool, supposing it actually happens. I took a day off of work, prepared lesson plans (which you have to have actually done yourself to appreciate why that's a big deal),and explained to ninth graders that I was going to see myabsolutealltimeFAVORITEEVEREEEK! Most of them had never even heard of him. That evening, the evening before the concert, we learned that Merle was not coming to Charlottesville. I pouted, but knowing of his recent bout with lung cancer, more than anything I prayed that he'd be okay. Mama tried.
I'd seen Merle in concert three times before. Once in Charlottesville. Once at the Warren County Fair with Mama and Jason in the pouring rain. But I swear the first time was fate. Jason and I took Aidan to Gatlinburg,Tennessee for a long weekend. Before I was even fully inside the hotel room, I saw it. The weekly events guide. It lay on the hotel room table, turned askew. I recognized the photo. Why would Merle Haggard grace the cover of a weekly events flyer? Unless. OHMYGOOOSHJASON! He probably thought there was a snake. Or a mouse. Or a spider. Or a stain....ewww.
We ended up lugging our twoyearold to a Merle Haggard concert because his mother cried and hooted around the hotel room when she learned Haggard would perform in town the following night. I couldn't wait to call my mom to tell her that Merle and I were in the same place at the same time--EEEK! I had my t-shirt on. I was ready! I called the venue. Sold out. I cried. Poor little Aidan. Mama tried.
"But we do have a few benches that we're going to add in....those tickets will go on sale tomorrow at 10:00. First come. First served."
I would get there at 7:00. I didn't shut up about it. I had to see Merle. I'd waited a lifetime. My lifetime--he might not tour forever. I was going to get those tickets, no matter what.
We drove by the venue at 8:00. No cars. No line. Jason offered to wait. He wouldn't let me stay there alone. No, I decided. If it was meant to be, I would get those tickets. We returned at 9:30. A few cars. Still no line. The door was unlocked.
I ended up buying the tickets twenty minutes before they were to go on sale. The benches were actually cushioned chairs. Aidan didn't even need a ticket as long as he stayed on our laps. He did (a miracle in itself really). He clapped and smiled. Two years old. Just like I had been. Just old enough to remember, to never forget.
Last Thursday, Jason and I returned to Charlottesville, and so did Merle. "I'm glad to be in Charlottesville tonight," he said. "I was supposed to come last year and I didn't make it. I thought I was having a heart attack, but I never did." I cried and felt blessed to see him once again. He only played an hour set, and I wasn't ready when he waved his hat to the crowd and turned to go. "He'll come back," I said to Jason.
He sat behind me; I stood on my tiptoes in threeinchheels clapping like the girls you see on television--the girls who are seeing Elvis, the Beatles, Justin Bieber. He's seventyfour and I'm thirtytwo and age doesn't really matter, because it's about the music, the poetry, the message, and I'm a groupie in love.
Each Christmas, my mom, my aunts, and I clean and decorate our family's farmhouse for the bigfamilydinner on Christmaseve. Each year, I plugged up the stereo,dropped Merle onto the turntable, and myuncleJoey and I danced around the living room. At our wedding reception, I asked that "Natural High" play when Jason and I danced.
You stayed with me through thick and thin, Watched me lose, you watched me win. You picked me up off of the ground. You never one time let me down.
And you put me on a natural high, And I can fly, I can fly. "Natural High"
"He's not coming back, Honey." I hope to myself that that's not an omen.
"But he always comes back. He has to....it's a standing ovaaaa....."
"Nope. That's his guitar, see? And that's the amp. The amp's off. We can wait if you want though, but...."
He wasn't coming back. An hour set. Most of the favorites, a new song, a few words of wisdom...."You can shoot a cannon across the country and all you'll hit is a Walmart." A date night with the man I love like no other--my husband. And seeing Merle one more time...I'll take it.
I grew up with Merle. Not literally, of course, but as long as I can remember having music in my life, Merle's been with me. On summer trips across the mountain, tucked into the hatchback of Mama's Datsun, my ear pressed against the popping speaker, my eyes closed and I sang to myself, sing me back home with the song my mama sa a ang....Daddy Frank played the guit tar and the French harp, sister played the ring ing tam bour ine....If we make it to De cem ber, everything's gonnabealright I know....
I turned 21 in prison doing life without parole. No one could steer me right but Mama tried.
Mama Tried. I love that song. It makes me laugh. It makes me cry. Isn't that what music's meant to do? For me, it is that way with Merle's songs. I've never been to prison--I've never even been arrested, thankyouverymuch--but I know almost every word to every song Merle's written about prison, and being a fugitive, bars--and bars, drinking and cheating, and, most of all, standing up and believing. I've never had gin, but I understand misery, and no Merle, I don't think they would mix too well....
His voice hasn't changed that much, and I don't think that his outlook really has either. I don't know that we'd agree on everything--especially my pacifist views (I read about some squirrely guy, Who claims, he just don't believe in fightin'. An' I wonder just how long,
The rest of us can count on bein' free...), but he values honesty and integrity, and so do I. Sometimes his rendition is different, but his words are still the same, and when I hear his songs now--the same songs I listened to thirty years ago (ohmygosh!) I feel them.
I know that you trust me to write things as they are...to give you my truth....to recreate things, just so. This, though, this is something I'm not sure I can explain.
I feel it when I hear bagpipes. It's a wholeness--like eating just enough but not too much. Like hugging someone you love more than life and having that person hug you back and love you that much too. My skin tingles and sometimes I grow goosebumps. Tears come, and I feel a bit embarrassed but mostly proud and full--complete. It's rare to feel complete in this big world. Have you ever felt homesick while sitting inside your own home? I have. What a lonely thing that is....but this is the opposite. I feel it when Bluegrass music catches my attention, as if by the crook of my arm, and makes me feel like part of a time longbeforeIwasborn. Do you see?
Merle Haggard played a concert at VCU's Mosque during the summer session of 1973. My mom was there, so was my Great-uncle Joey, my aunt Beth, and Barbara Mandrell. It's difficult for me to imagine, really. My mom before me. My mom before she was my mom. I was five years away. Her hair still hung halfway down her back and parted in the middle without bangs. I don't know if she'd changed majors yet, from nursing to education--a decision that set her life's course, perhaps more than any other. She'd marry my dad the following November--a decision that set my life's course too....
She and I were supposed to see Merle together last fall. My birthday present. Dinner and Merle. How cool is that? Cool, supposing it actually happens. I took a day off of work, prepared lesson plans (which you have to have actually done yourself to appreciate why that's a big deal),and explained to ninth graders that I was going to see myabsolutealltimeFAVORITEEVEREEEK! Most of them had never even heard of him. That evening, the evening before the concert, we learned that Merle was not coming to Charlottesville. I pouted, but knowing of his recent bout with lung cancer, more than anything I prayed that he'd be okay. Mama tried.
I'd seen Merle in concert three times before. Once in Charlottesville. Once at the Warren County Fair with Mama and Jason in the pouring rain. But I swear the first time was fate. Jason and I took Aidan to Gatlinburg,Tennessee for a long weekend. Before I was even fully inside the hotel room, I saw it. The weekly events guide. It lay on the hotel room table, turned askew. I recognized the photo. Why would Merle Haggard grace the cover of a weekly events flyer? Unless. OHMYGOOOSHJASON! He probably thought there was a snake. Or a mouse. Or a spider. Or a stain....ewww.We ended up lugging our twoyearold to a Merle Haggard concert because his mother cried and hooted around the hotel room when she learned Haggard would perform in town the following night. I couldn't wait to call my mom to tell her that Merle and I were in the same place at the same time--EEEK! I had my t-shirt on. I was ready! I called the venue. Sold out. I cried. Poor little Aidan. Mama tried.
"But we do have a few benches that we're going to add in....those tickets will go on sale tomorrow at 10:00. First come. First served."
I would get there at 7:00. I didn't shut up about it. I had to see Merle. I'd waited a lifetime. My lifetime--he might not tour forever. I was going to get those tickets, no matter what.
We drove by the venue at 8:00. No cars. No line. Jason offered to wait. He wouldn't let me stay there alone. No, I decided. If it was meant to be, I would get those tickets. We returned at 9:30. A few cars. Still no line. The door was unlocked.
I ended up buying the tickets twenty minutes before they were to go on sale. The benches were actually cushioned chairs. Aidan didn't even need a ticket as long as he stayed on our laps. He did (a miracle in itself really). He clapped and smiled. Two years old. Just like I had been. Just old enough to remember, to never forget.
Last Thursday, Jason and I returned to Charlottesville, and so did Merle. "I'm glad to be in Charlottesville tonight," he said. "I was supposed to come last year and I didn't make it. I thought I was having a heart attack, but I never did." I cried and felt blessed to see him once again. He only played an hour set, and I wasn't ready when he waved his hat to the crowd and turned to go. "He'll come back," I said to Jason.
He sat behind me; I stood on my tiptoes in threeinchheels clapping like the girls you see on television--the girls who are seeing Elvis, the Beatles, Justin Bieber. He's seventyfour and I'm thirtytwo and age doesn't really matter, because it's about the music, the poetry, the message, and I'm a groupie in love.Each Christmas, my mom, my aunts, and I clean and decorate our family's farmhouse for the bigfamilydinner on Christmaseve. Each year, I plugged up the stereo,dropped Merle onto the turntable, and myuncleJoey and I danced around the living room. At our wedding reception, I asked that "Natural High" play when Jason and I danced.
You stayed with me through thick and thin, Watched me lose, you watched me win. You picked me up off of the ground. You never one time let me down.
And you put me on a natural high, And I can fly, I can fly. "Natural High"
"He's not coming back, Honey." I hope to myself that that's not an omen.
"But he always comes back. He has to....it's a standing ovaaaa....."
"Nope. That's his guitar, see? And that's the amp. The amp's off. We can wait if you want though, but...."
He wasn't coming back. An hour set. Most of the favorites, a new song, a few words of wisdom...."You can shoot a cannon across the country and all you'll hit is a Walmart." A date night with the man I love like no other--my husband. And seeing Merle one more time...I'll take it.
Copyright © 2011. Carrie Ellen
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