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Yup, another Merle Haggard song. I love his singing and have listened to a lot of it, and his songwriting is up there with the best. I wouldn’t say the songs I’ve learned are necessarily his greatest work; they’re all from relatively early in his career, and unlike most of my favorite songwriters, he actually got better as he aged. His voice, too. He was always good, but his voice on things like “Kern River” has a depth and soul the young outlaw hadn’t yet grown into.

Which isn’t to say he didn’t have plenty of depth and soul in the early years. He had the gift, along with Lefty Frizzell, Hank Williams, Jerry Lee Lewis, Loretta Lynn… and hell, all my favorite country singers… of being able to get drunk and sorrowful without ever losing the edge that made the songs come alive. It was real blues, the kind you sing not to wallow in misery but to make yourself feel better.

As I’ve written in an earlier post, I learned a bunch of his songs before a hitchhiking journey through the southeastern US, and promptly got a one-night gig in a honky-tonk bar where that repertoire served me well. I’ve already posted a few favorites — “Swinging Doors,” “I Take a Lot of Pride in What I Am,” and “Mama Tried” — but in general I haven’t sung them much. As I say, he could make this kind of doleful lyric come alive, but I can only do that in just the right room, right situation, right company, and right level of alcohol, so I tend to steer clear of them, except for my own pleasure.

For a while I wasn’t even going to try to film and post this one, but then I started fooling around with a guitar part — treated it as a kind of blues, put it in the key of E — and got to liking it.

The lyric is classic late-night drunken loneliness: “I only call when I’ve had that one too many…” with a touch of physical specificity to bring it home: “Last night I couldn’t even find my pillow/ I’ve got the emptiest arms in the world.” That could be a funny line, but it isn’t. Or shouldn’t be. Damn good writer.

I’d forgotten that he recorded this on the I Love Dixie Blues album, since I associate that record with the horn-powered Emmett Miller songs. But there it is, along with “Everybody’s Had the Blues,” another favorite that I’ve never attempted. I’m listening to it now, and man, I love that man’s voice. And the arrangement, with Roy Nichols at his absolute best on guitar, and Norm Hamlett on steel, and someone playing quiet harmonica in the background, and Johnny Gimble coming in toward the end, perfect, as always… all of it framing that voice. Damn.