For Father’s Day my son gave me a CD I’ve wanted for awhile, Merle Haggard’s “Bluegrass Sessions.” In that CD lies a story about how America has changed in less than a generation.

Hags has always had a checkered reputation among white liberals as does most country music. It reminds me of the famous line from the original “Grand Ole Opry,” when host George D. Hay said, “This ain’t grand opera it’s the grand ole opry!” For white liberals, especially of the limousine variety, country music gets associated with the word redneck a lot and many of them think of Merle Haggard as the biggest redneck of them all. Some progressives would no more have a Haggard CD in the house than watch Bill O’Reilly or read a book by Ann Coulter.

But to lump Haggard with those two is to completely misread the man. First, he’s got more talent. I remember reading once that his voice covers eight octaves. He also recorded one of the first country concept albums–and one of the greatest American recordings–a two record tribute to Jimmie Rodgers titled “Same Train, Different Time.”

Merle Haggard is actually one of a dying breed, a country performer who came up the hard way, from the poorest of backgrounds with a stint in San Quentin on his record, where legend has it he heard Johnny Cash and decided to become a country singer.

Like Cash, Loretta Lynn and others, Haggard gave a voice to those who didn’t have a voice, who needed someone to tell their stories, from those who worked the cotton fields like Cash’s family or the mines like Lynn’s or the California labor camps filled with displaced Okies like Haggard’s family.

The Counterrevolution tried to turn Haggard into an icon, an Ann Coulter with a guitar, but he shunned the role, for he is a more complex soul than that. He also was plainly uncomfortable with being used. Sometimes when he would sing “Okie from Muskogee” he would do it with that famous Haggard smirk he can get. Some got it, some didn’t, and some refused to say they got it.

Back a few years ago, country music stars wrapped themselves in the flag and those who didn’t were soundly castigated. Remember the Dixie Chicks? In a London concert lead singer Texas native Natalie Maines said on stage,

We’re ashamed that the President of the United States is from Texas.

Immediately after the remarks hit this side of the pond, a firestorm broke out, with people calling for a boycott of the Chicks and smashing CDs in demonstrations designed to attract as many cameras as possible. In one of the most controversial reactions, radio stations stopped playing Chicks’ recordings. Gail Austin, Clear Channel’s director of programming for two Jacksonville, Florida stations said:

Out of respect for our troops, our city and our listeners, [we] have taken the Dixie Chicks off our play lists.

That was 2003, but in a signal of things to come, one of the country performers who spoke out for the Chicks was none other than Merle Haggard.

Five years later even stars such as Toby Keith, who plays a star-spangled guitar, and Tim McGraw had changed their tunes. According to CommonDreams.org

:Now Keith says he is a lifelong Democrat and has claimed he never supported the war….Tim McGraw - the biggest contemporary country star - has a hit single with If You’re Reading This, about a dead soldier’s last letter home, and the Dixie Chicks, boycotted in 2003 after lead singer Natalie Maines told an audience in London: “We’re ashamed that the President of the United States is from Texas,” won five Grammy Awards this year.

But the biggest story of all is Haggard. This fall when Haggard came out with the “Bluegrass Sessions” he had America talking yet again. This time the center of attention was a song titled “What Happened?” The tag line of which is:

What happened? Where did America go?

I can’t quote any more of the lyrics because of copyright restrictions, but let’s just say “What Happened?” is an interesting song the covers a lot of bases. Some of them echo themes in the book Strange Death. For example, Haggard’s chorus laments the decline of “mom and pop” owned stores at the expense of corporate behemoths such as Wal-Mart. He also hits the high price of gasoline (and this was before it hit $4) and one of his–and America’s favorite topics–the evening news.

On the other hand there a Reagan-like complaint about Uncle Sam spending your money and an ambiguous line about “truth that stood for years” no longer means anything. Finally there is the requisite reference to 9/11.

In many ways, “What Happened?” is a laundry list of the complaints that you can find in any recent poll about the attitudes of American voters. In short, they are angry and frustrated. Back a year ago, just before the Iowa primary, a Des Moines Register poll showed:

Sixty-four percent of Iowans believed “things have gotten off track.

After the release of his album Haggard did a most un-Haggard-like thing: he hit the road hustling his CD and gave interviews that made clear exactly how he felt about what had happened to America under one George W. Bush.

No less than Time ran a story, “Does Merle Haggard Speak for America?” which laid it all out:

Merle Haggard has always had his guitar hardwired to the gutbucket pulse of Middle America. Back in the Vietnam era, he seemed the essence of a historic political migration: white males fleeing the feminized, antiwar, politically correct Democratic Party.

In the interview Haggard went after George Bush, mincing no words:

The folks don’t have a say-so anymore. They’re being force-fed—music, yeah, but every other darn thing too. I supported George W. I’m not exactly a liberal. But I know how that Texas thing works, who those oil folks are and what they wanted in Iraq… I’m a born-again Christian too, but the longer I live, the more afraid I get of some of these religious groups that have so much influence on the Republicans and want to tell us how to live our lives.

But Haggard wasn’t done:

The thing that gets under my skin most about George W. is his intention to install fear in people. This is America. We’re proud. We’re not afraid of a bunch of terrorists. But this government is all about terror alerts and scaring us at airports. We’re changing the Constitution out of fear. We spend all our time looking up each other’s dresses. Fear’s the only issue the Republican Party has. Vote for them, or the terrorists will win. That’s not what Reagan was about. I hate to think about our soldiers over in Iraq fighting for a country that’s slipping away.

Then Haggard did something even more unprecedented he wrote a song endorsing Hillary Clinton for President with the line:

This country needs to be honest/This country needs to be large/Something like a big switch of gender/Let’s put a woman in charge.

Back in the 1960s there was a saying that when Lyndon Johnson lost Walter Cronkite was when he knew he had lost the American people. When George W. Bush lost Merle Haggard he had to feel he had lost the American people. The Counterrevolution also has to be worried that maybe America is finally catching on to its game.

Haggard’s support of Hillary Clinton also hints at an important dynamic that the Democrats would be wise to heed. Clinton’s successes were fueled by what might be termed “Haggard voters,” working class people who have long represented the core of Haggard’s audience. With Hillary Clinton’s withdrawal from the election there has been much speculation about where these voters will go come November.

If I were Barack Obama and the Democratic Party I would be sure I did not lose the “Haggard voters.” The themes he evokes in “What Happened?” are essentially about a country in which the playing field has become tilted so much that we have to wonder, “Where did America go?” Merle Haggard may be trying to tell the Democratic Party it needs to recover this theme.

What do you suppose would happen if Haggard wrote a song for Obama? That truly would signal change is in the air.

Tags: bluegrass sessions, counterrevolution, country music, Democratic Party, Dixie Chicks, George-W-Bush, grand ole opry, Haggard voters, Hillary Clinton, Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn, Lyndon Johnson, merle haggard, Obama, okie from muskogee, The Strange Death of Liberal America, Tim McGraw, Toby Keith, what happened, working class
Tagged with: bluegrass sessions • counterrevolution • country music • Democratic Party • Dixie Chicks • George-W-Bush • grand ole opry • Haggard voters • Hillary Clinton • Johnny Cash • Loretta Lynn • Lyndon Johnson • merle haggard • Obama • okie from muskogee • The Strange Death of Liberal America • Tim McGraw • Toby Keith • what happened • working class