Normally, if you wrote a country music song that mentioned marijuana, LSD and group sex, you would be permanently barred from country music radio. But in 1969 Merle Haggard did just that with “Okie from Muskogee” and wound up at the top of the country music charts. Granted, in his version of events, the narrator was describing all the things they supposedly didn’t do in small-town Oklahoma.
Ever since the song was released people have been debating whether or not Haggard was celebrating the joys of small town life or mocking it. Haggard himself was a complicated figure. He embraced being one of President Richard Nixon’s favorite singers, yet at the same time had an arrest record that would make most gangster rappers cringe. Over the years, there have been countless parodies and covers of “Okie from Muskogee,” sometimes at the same time, by singers who wore “manly footwear” and even by hippies from San Francisco, whom he was seemingly deriding.
The latest to tackle the track is Willie Nelson, a man who probably wouldn’t hesitate to smoke marijuana if he ever passed through Muskogee. He included the song on his latest album, Workin’ Man: Willie Sings Merle (click here to read a review).
Nelson plays the track as a laidback, piano-driven country song. He seems to neither celebrate nor mock the people of Muskogee. Instead, he delivers a joyous cover that’s easy to sing along to. He’s simply celebrating Haggard. In fact, that’s the spirit of the whole record. Nelson sings as if he’s having a great time paying tribute to his departed friend and fellow country outlaw. Even the sad songs are happy and upbeat. It’s a worthy tribute to Haggard’s life and music. I don’t expect contemporary country radio to play any of it.
