Introduction:
While touring together in the early 1970s, Merle Haggard had already fallen in love with Dolly Parton. Haggard even wrote a love song for Parton, “Always Wanting You,” which he released on his chart-topping album, Keep Movin’ On, and earned Haggard another No. 1 on the Country chart.
To add to his affections for Parton, he also picked up his nineteenth No. 1 on the Country chart from the album that year with his cover of one of her songs, “Kentucky Gambler.” The song, which follows the story of a miner who leaves his family to gamble in Reno, Nevada, also marked Parton’s first No. 1 as a songwriter for another artist.
Years later, when Parton released her sixteenth album, Dolly, from 1975, her gospel-bent “The Seeker,” which she described as her “talk with God,” went to No. 2 on the Country chart. A year later, Haggard also recorded his version of the hit for his album, It’s All in the Movies.
Throughout the late 1960s through mid-’70s, Haggard also released two more songs by Parton, including one he released before her and another she wrote specifically with him in mind. Here’s a look behind the two songs Parton wrote for Haggard.
“In the Good Old Days (When Times Were Bad)” (1968)
When Dolly Parton released her 1969 album In the Good Old Days (When Times Were Bad), a collection of songs documenting some of the lessons she learned about what mattered in life from her impoverished upbringing, her title track spelled it all out: No amount of money could buy from me / The memories that I have of then.
At the time, Merle Haggard immediately connected to her song “In the Good Old Days (When Times Were Bad),” having grown up poor and raised by a single mother after his father’s death and ended up releasing it before Parton on his 1968 album Mama Tried, several months before she released her version.
“My Love Affair With Trains” (1976)
Parton was aware of Haggard’s lifelong connection to trains and pulled together the perfect song for him, the title track of his twentieth album, My Love Affair With Trains. By the age of 5, Haggard hopped his first train. Growing up, Haggard’s father, Jim Haggard, worked as a Santa Fe Railroad carpenter and died when the country singer was 9 years old. Decades after his father’s death, Haggard’s love for locomotives continued. My Love Affair with Trains opens with Parton’s song.
Parton never recorded “My Love Affair With Trains.” In 1985, Haggard took his love of trains to another level by leasing a dome rail car that would transport artists, including Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan, along with farm officials and the press to the annual Farm Aid concert. Unfortunately, Haggard couldn’t find the funding, nixing the tour-by-train campaign.
Today, Haggard’s dome car is now part of the Virginia Scenic Railway, which offers three-hour scenic tours through Shenandoah Valley and the Blue Ridge Mountains.