OldiesButGoodies

Country

2 Songs Dolly Parton Wrote for Merle Haggard (1968-1976)

Photo via Getty Images (photographer not listed)

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.

Video:

https://youtu.be/pdrz4Xfd9WA?si=PNF6OCfRFmb5C4NN

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Merle Haggard’s childhood was becoming increasingly chaotic when something entered his life that would eventually change everything: a guitar. His older brother Lowell gave him one when Merle was around 12. Merle began teaching himself, absorbing the records and styles of country heroes such as Bob Wills, Lefty Frizzell and Hank Williams. There were no expensive lessons preparing him for Nashville. There was simply a troubled California kid listening closely and learning how another man’s sadness could live inside a melody. Merle would still make plenty of mistakes. Music didn’t instantly rescue him from running away, juvenile detention or eventually prison. But the guitar remained. Years later, millions would recognize Merle’s voice within seconds. Perhaps that’s because he wasn’t merely learning how to sing songs as a boy. He was slowly learning how to tell the truth about his own life.

Merle Haggard rarely needed to invent heartbreak. He had known it since childhood. In 1946, when Merle was only nine years old, his father, James Haggard, died following a stroke. For a boy who deeply needed his father’s presence, the loss became a turning point. His mother, Flossie, worked to support the family. Merle, meanwhile, became increasingly restless. He skipped school, ran away, got into trouble, and began a long journey through juvenile institutions that eventually led somewhere far darker. Looking back at his life, it is difficult not to see that nine-year-old boy behind many of the adult Merle Haggard’s songs. People later called him a rebel, an outlaw and a survivor. But before any of those labels existed, there was simply a grieving boy who had lost his dad—and never seemed to completely outrun that loss.

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