Did you happen to watch the American Masters biography of Haggard that I posted earlier this week? It’s long, so no worries if you didn’t, but Gillian Welch makes an important comment in the interview with her in that documentary.

“I’ve never heard another singer say the word “shame” the way he says the word ” it always seemed like some kind of a touchstone for him.”

We’re talking only about a very small segment of Haggard’s songs this week, but it’s not too hard to hear the truth of what Welch says, even though the word “shame” is not actually used, in “Sing Me Back Home,” “Mama Tried,” or in the song we’ll finish the week with, “Life in Prison.”  “Life in Prison” is a true murder ballad by Haggard, sticking closely to his “three chords and the truth,” two verses and a chorus approach–although with this one, he gets by with just two chords.

The jury found the verdict first degree
They swore I planned her death to be
I prayed they’d sentence me to die
But they wanted me to live and I know why

So I do life in prison for the wrongs I’ve done
And I pray every night for death to come
My life will be a burden every day
If I could die my pain might go away

Insane with rage I took my darling’s life
Because I loved her more than life
My dreams for her will last a long long time
But I’d rather die than live to lose my mind

But I’ve got life in prison for the wrongs I’ve done…
If I could die my pain might go away

A Honky-Tonk Murder Ballad

In this rather compressed story, we’ve skipped past the crime for the most part, and moved straight to the penalty and repentance. The idea that “I took my darling’s life because I loved her more than life,” is familiar from any number of classic murder ballads, but there are a few other things missing.

In another time when murder ballads did such things (let’s assume they don’t do this as much now), would this song serve as a warning to young women to stay away from risky situations or men like our protagonist? Well, no. We don’t know enough about the rest of the story to fill in the gaps. Might it serve as a warning to young men? Perhaps. Is there any redemption for either of them? Precious little. 

No, this song is fixes entirely on the price to be paid, and specifically on life as the worst possible penalty–not because he’s in prison, but because he still has to live with what he’s done. Unlike, “Sing Me Back Home,” our murderer has no immediate prospect of release beyond the grave, however much he might wish it. The important point is that the most devastating punishment is for him to live with the guilt and shame of what cannot be undone. It’s this mode of enduring personal responsibility that inflects many of Haggard’s prison songs. The emotional truth he captures is one that taps in to that sense of sin and regret. 

That’s the outlaw figure that Haggard presents–not a rebellious one, but a repentant one who doesn’t feel that his repentance will ever reach atonement. I won’t speculate directly on Haggard’s inner artistic motivations, but when I listen to his comments in the PBS documentary, it’s this theme that I keep hearing.

The Covers

The Byrds included this honky-tonk country hit on their Sweethearts of the Rodeo album.

Big Joe Burke provides another strong cover.

Conclusion

There are several reasons why I picked “Sing Me Back Home” instead of “Life in Prison” to lead this week with Merle Haggard. “SMBH” is more famous, and has a richer array of themes to draw from, despite its simplicity. “Life in Prison” provides helpful perspective in informing us a little more just what the actual phrase “sing me back home” might represent to the condemned man in that song. Some allege that the home that that “home” is an the man’s actual, childhood home–that he’s asking the songs to take him back to his beginnings. It’s a plausible read, perhaps; but I suspect that many Haggard listeners would hear that “home” as an eternal one, lying on the other side of the condemned man’s final punishment.  On earth, at least in the world created by the song, there is just repentance and regret that one can never fully put away. “Life in Prison” helps us understand and vicariously experience a little bit more what that feels like–just in case we needed the help.