SING ME
BACK HOME
MERLE HAGGARD
SONGWRITER: MERLE HAGGARD
COUNTRY: U. S. A.
ALBUM: THE STRANGER, MERLE HAGGARD
LABEL: CAPITOL RECORDS
GENRE: COUNTRY
YEAR: 1968
Merle Ronald Haggard (April 6, 1937 – April
6, 2016) was an American country singer, songwriter, guitarist, and fiddler.
Haggard was born in Oildale,
California, during the Great Depression.
His childhood was
troubled after the death of his father, and he was incarcerated several times
in his youth. After being released from San Quentin State Prison in 1960, he
managed to turn his life around and launch a successful country music career.
He gained popularity with his songs about the working class that occasionally
contained conformist and jingoistic themes contrary to the prevailing anti-Vietnam War sentiment of much popular music of the time. Between the 1960s and
the 1980s, he had 38 number-one hits on the US country charts, several of which
also made the Billboard all-genre singles chart.
Haggard continued to
release successful albums into the 2000s.
He received many honors and awards for his
music, including a Kennedy
Center Honor (2010), a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award (2006), a BMI Icon Award (2006), and induction into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame (1977), Country Music Hall of Fame (1994) and Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame (1997). He
died on April 6, 2016—his 79th birthday—at his ranch in Shasta County, California, having
recently suffered from double pneumonia.
This
is a song about a prisoner taking the last walk to execution. Haggard did time
in San Quentin, and the inspiration for the song comes from his friendship with
a fellow inmate named “Rabbit”, who took just such a walk.
Sing Me Back Home is the fifth studio album
by American country singer and songwriter Merle
Haggard and The Strangers, released in 1968 on Capitol Records.
The warden led a
prisoner down the hallway to his doom
I stood up to say good-bye like all the rest
And I heard him tell the warden just before he reached my cell
'Let my guitar playing friend do my request.' (Let him...)
Sing me back home
with a song I used to hear
Make my old memories come alive
Take me away and turn back the years
Sing Me Back Home before I die
I recall last Sunday
morning a choir from 'cross the street
Came to sing a few old gospel songs
And I heard him tell the singers 'There's a song my mama sang.
Can I hear once before we move along?'
Sing me back home,
the song my mama sang
Make my old memories come alive
Take me away and turn back the years
Sing Me Back Home before I die
Sing Me Back Home
before I die.
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