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Merle Haggard: A brief provocation

Driving out to the garden this afternoon, dodging storms and squishing Japanese beetles (actually, I dump 'em in water and feed 'em to the chickens, which is, at least, sport...or recycling), I was reminded of a conceit which emerged when Andy McLenon and I were writing about Merle Haggard some years back.

And it is this: Merle Haggard is the greatest living American songwriter.

Discuss. Argue. Have fun.

But consider this: He is and always has been more than "Okie From Muskogee," he's had 90 top-40 country hits (most of which he wrote), and, well, here are some of those hits (I shan't tarry long enough to make sure he wrote all of 'em): "(My Friends Are Gonna Be) Strangers," "Swinging Doors," "The Bottle Let Me Down," "Branded Man," "Sing Me Back Home," "Mama Tried," "Workin' Man Blues," "It's Not Love (But It's Not Half Bad)," "If We Make It Through December," "If We're Not Back In Love By Monday," "I Think I'll Just Stay Here And Drink," "What Am I Gonna Do (With The Rest Of My Life)," "That's The Way Love Goes," "Kern River," and those are just the ones in my old Billboard chart book (thanks, Bill).

Now, I realize I'm swinging at some fences with this little provocation, and that's fine. I said he's the greatest living American songwriter. Not the most successful, but the greatest, by which I mean a kind of balance between art and commerce, and so Townes Van Zandt (to pick a name) doesn't count, and Peter's free to argue for Jimmy Webb except that on my desert island we listen to Merle because he touches me, and Jimmy Webb mostly doesn't. And Dolly Parton, that'd be another one, and I think she's under-rated as a songwriter because she's been clever enough to hide it behind her wigs and her brassieres. And, of course, Willie Nelson, there's another one, but Willie...oh, have at it, y'all.

Just a passing Saturday afternoon thought.

Hopefully most of y'all are back in the Northwest at the festival anyhow.

Tags: Dolly, Haggard, Jimmy, Merle, Parton, Townes, Van, Webb, Zandt, alden

Comment by Don McLeese on July 11, 2009 at 4:27pm: though i'm well aware of grant's deaf spot in this particular area, let someone state the obvious:

bob dylan

and anyone else (john fogerty? smokey robinson? dan penn? butch hancock? prince?) is a very distant second.

Comment by Grant Alden on July 11, 2009 at 5:00pm: Deaf spot conceded, but Dylan's songs are meant (mostly, to be sure) to be sung by Dylan. I don't see many of them entering the great American songbook. Haggard...I think will last longer. Really I do, and not simply to poke at the obvious.

Comment by Don McLeese on July 11, 2009 at 5:45pm: though dylan may not only be the most oft-covered of living american songwriters, from johnny cash to motown and mavis to the turtles (and byrds, baez, ppm, etc. etc.) but without his influence we wouldn't have had a change is gonna come, sitting on the dock of the bay, norweigan wood et al.

i love haggard, think he's a great songwriter, but those songs constitute a narrow strain compared with the universal dylan. i'd always hoped we could do a point-counterpoint on this in ND.

Comment by PB on July 11, 2009 at 7:37pm: >>
but Dylan's songs are meant (mostly, to be sure) to be sung by Dylan.
>>

three days ago i visited a barbecue joint where a little bluegrass band was set up in the corner playing. after one particular song, my wife remarked, "oh, pure prairie league!" ... but it wasn't a pure prairie league song. it was a bob dylan song that pure prairie league had also covered, many years ago.

which is just one immediate example, off the top of my head, of the guy's pervasiveness, and of how virulently incorrect it would be to suggest that dylan's songs have been mostly for dylan only.

care to explain how a great deal of the byrds' early success was with the dylan songbook? how one of jimi hendrix's most indelible numbers was "all along the watchtower"? or how robyn hitchcock recorded a double-album of dylan songs? (that's just the tip of the iceberg, of course -- but the differences between those three artists give some idea of the breadth of his reach, on top of the depth.)

no, let's end this silliness before it goes any further. there can be NO argument: bob dylan is the world's greatest living songwriter. none. what. so. ever. deaf spots be damned.

of course, i know grant well enough to not be surprised at this from him. but i'd really expect more sense from andy!

(even acknowledging that andy and i might collectively make a devil's-advocate case for jimmy webb....)

Comment by Grant Alden on July 12, 2009 at 5:20am: Oh, don't blame Andy for my argument; I suspect, were he attending, he'd chime in in defense of Dylan.
As I'm sure others will.
To be painfully honest, as I was typing this last night it didn't even occur to me to THINK of Dylan. Because I don't. I think of Dylan as somebody who wrote a handful of songs early in his career which -- yes -- came to enter the canon through a number of interpretations, and who then went about an increasingly obscure and oblique path to self-congratulatory genius. Or whatever.
So maybe part of what I mean is this: Haggard's active songwriting career (the hits, anyway) span thirty years. The songs which I propose argue him to be the greatest living songwriter. The songs Dylan wrote -- like a young physicist -- which have similarly entered the canon were the work of one short, specific point in his creative development.
And this: Despite how pervasive Dylan songs may be in Peter's universe...if I never heard another one played, I would not miss it. And if I never heard another one of Haggard's songs, they would still ring true in my head.
So there.

Comment by Don McLeese on July 12, 2009 at 7:23am: as for the "early in his career" argument, bruce springsteen (the most successful of the new dylans) once remarked that if anyone else had written a song as inspired as the (mid-career) "every grain of sand," it would be a pinnacle, justification of supreme artistry in and of itself. and of course there's the mid-career "knockin' on heaven's door," which i tend to dismiss as minor dylan, but which i think has been covered by everyone. and even late dylan inspires some great covers, as the dixie chicks' version of "mississippi" attests. so in the "balance between art and commerce," i'd suggest that the musical expanse between gnr and the dc suggests a songwriter whose work strikes an incomparably resonant chord across genres, genders and generations.

Comment by gwwjk19 on July 12, 2009 at 9:51am: I friggin' love Merle...enuff said...but, isn't there always a but, I'd have to put him a tad behind Springsteen, Dylan, Guy Clark, Tom Waits, Brian Wilson & what the heck, Steve Earle on the greatest living songwriters...just my 2 cents

np: The Loner - Nils Sings Neil

ps: btw - I guess Neil IS technically an American songwriter too...OK...I need to change my top 5...

onward.....geo

Comment by johnrunion on July 12, 2009 at 11:22am: merle is the greatest songwriter of all time...living or other wise. merle's influence is direct and indirect. merle influenced the general public/the music listening, record buying public + other artists. also, by now there are newer artists who were influenced by those who were influenced by merle. whereas dylan's influence on the general public was indirect. dylan influenced the people who influenced the general public. i love the byrds. it was artists like the byrds that got dylan's message to the general public, not dylan himself. tom waits has said if you want to learn about songwriting listen to merle. i love springsteen, but he is not in dylan's league, much less merle's. guy clark and especially steve earle do not not have the body of work to compare with the hag. brian wilson/the beach boys are my all time favorite recording artists, but merle continued to create during the period when brian was unable to. willie nelson is just a media wh*re.

Comment by johnrunion on July 12, 2009 at 6:45pm: another way to look at 'greatest songwriter' or 'greatest living songwriter' is not to include 'influence' in the equation . influence can be attributed to popularity. an artist who is well known will have greater reaching influence than one who is relatively unknown. just because one is known better than another doesn't mean the more popular of the two is a better songwriter.

merle is still the man.

Comment by PB on July 13, 2009 at 12:06pm: regarding johnrunion's statement:
>>
it was artists like the byrds that got dylan's message to the general public, not dylan himself.
>>

having disciples helped, but i think this greatly understimates the popularity -- with the general public -- of dylan's own works. i'd need access to sales-figures to back it up, but i highly suspect that Highway 61 Revisited, Blonde On Blonde, Blood On The Tracks and perhaps even The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan outsold any record Merle ever issued, perhaps twofold or more. (if someone DOES have access to such figures and can look them up, i'd certainly be interested in the results.)

regarding the tail-end of grant's last rejoinder:
>>
And this: Despite how pervasive Dylan songs may be in Peter's universe...if I never heard another one played, I would not miss it. And if I never heard another one of Haggard's songs, they would still ring true in my head.
So there.

....no doubt that this is the case, but the key there is the repeated appearance of the word "I". clearly dylan is not your personal favorite songwriter; and, frankly, neither is he mine. but the topic at hand is not a matter of whether merle or dylan (or anyone else) is the personal favorite of anyone involved in the discussion. the assertion regarded "the greatest living American songwriter", which implies some sort of standard against which all songwriters can be measured. the argument becomes perhaps about what that standard (or standards) should be ... but in considering the various options, it become increasingly difficult to put anyone above bob dylan.