Re: Merle Haggard

[Carrol Cox <cbcox@xxxxxxxxx>]

"Devine, James" wrote:
>
> > A long way from Okie from Muskogee, no? jks
>
> I heard a report on the writing of that song on US National Public Radio awhile back. Haggard and the rest of the band were stoned out of their gourds on pot when driving through Muskogee -- and the song was a satire. It's the audience that interpreted it as a patriotic anthem in defense of "middle America" and its values -- and made it so successful.
>
> (for anyone who doesn't know the lyrics:
>
> We don't smoke marijuana in Muskogee;
> We don't take our trips on LSD
> We don't burn our draft cards down on Main Street;
> We like livin' right, and bein' free.
>

Some soldiers in the G.I. movement in whatever camp it is near El Paso
Texas stayed overnight with us on their way east for a conference. They
gave us copies of some of the songs they used. One was a rewrite of Okie
from Muskogee. It's still around the house someplace, I don't know
where, but a couple of the lines were something like this:

We don't drop bombs on children in Muskogee,
And we don't think too much of those who do.

(Not quite accurate, but it gives the feel.)

I think I've posted before on an interesting difference between the
words in the text from the G.I. movement and as it was later printed in
the Berkeley Barb:

G.I. version:

They send our kids to school they're just like prisons.

Berkeley Barb:

They send us off to school they're just like prisons.

Too bad Guthrie wasn't alive and well to play with the pronouns.

Carrol