Won’t See Him There Any More

Song 298: This week on the playlist I’m posting the Merle Haggard track Swinging Doors (which he wrote) as a tribute to one of country music’s most important figures, because, sadly, he had to leave country music last Wednesday, on the date of his 79th birthday, 4/6/16. I would rank this as my second favorite Merle cut, closely following Mama Tried (Song 191). I don’t remember the first time I heard it, but if there’s any truth to the rumor about me performing with a country bar pickup band in the East Bay during the 1980s, that band might have included this song during a set on any given night, and the first time we played it, I already knew it well, and felt as if I’d always known it. I read a few articles in Rolling Stone in the ‘70s that made a point about Merle being the real deal, as someone who had actually lived the life he wrote about in his songs, including spending time behind bars, although, fortunately for us all, when he turned 21 in prison he wasn’t really doing life without parole, but actually just a couple of years, because he hadn’t killed anyone — he had only committed a botched burglary. During his time in San Quentin, he got to see a Johnny Cash show there, and that show inspired him to take a much better direction when he got out of jail. In the early ‘90s, I usually tried to make the weekly songwriter’s gathering at Jack Hardy’s place on Houston St., and the group basically tuned in to only new material, so I tried to come up with a new song every week for the meeting. One particular week, I still hadn’t written anything by the day before the gathering, and as I desperately tried to come up with a lyric idea, my mind wandered into thinking about Merle, and how his last name couldn’t have been more perfect for him and his role in country music. I thought of the line As long as Merle is still Haggard I guess country music will do all right and from there, I suddenly had a concept for a song about puns of country singers’ names. I finished it before the meeting, and when I played it for the group, Richard Julian (see Song 283) looked at me and said, “That song could be a hit in Nashville.” So far that hasn’t happened, but later in the decade, I did get to see Merle perform in a small (but packed) club in Manhattan, not once, but twice, and I felt like country music was doing all right then. I can’t say how country music will fare following Merle’s death, but at least Willie is still willin’ and Charley still has his Pride. You can find the As Long as Merle is Still Haggard video here.