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Hag/Someday We'll Look Back

Merle Haggard - Hag/Someday We'll Look Back Audio CD

A fair review of the Merle Haggard "Hag/Someday We'll Look Back" Audio CD. Please note that the below review is the views of the authors, and authors only. You can get a complete list of all Merle Haggard reviews here, or go back to the Merle Haggard tabs.

Band: Merle Haggard
Title: Hag/Someday We'll Look Back
Rating:

Release Date: 2006-02-21
Media: Audio CD

Tracks: 1: Soldier's Last Letter 2: Shelly's Winter Love 3: Jesus, Take A Hold 4: I Can't Be Myself 5: I'm A Good Loser 6: Sidewalks Of Chicago 7: No Reason To Quit 8: If You've Got The Time 9: The Farmer's Daughter 10: I've Done It All 11: I Ain't Got Nobody (Previously Unreleased - bonus track) 12: I'll Be A Hero When I Strike (bonus track) 13: Trouble In Mind (bonus track) 14: Someday We'll Look Back 15: Train Of Life 16: One Sweet Hello 17: One Row At A Time 18: Big Time Annie's Square 19: I'd Rather Be Gone 20: California Cottonfields 21: Carolyn 22: Tulare Dust 23: Huntsville 24: The Only Trouble With Me 25: Spanish Two Step (Previously Unreleased - bonus track) 26: Worried, Unhappy, Lonesome, & Sorry (bonus track)

The Best Merle Haggard Concept Album!
I was only 15 years old and living in Hico, Texas working on our family ranch! I had a portable 8 track player and would listen to Soldiers Last Letter and Shellys Winter Love! His voice was perfect at this time in history and when I found that the CD had finally been released I bought it. Merle Haggard did the great album in 1970. I still listen to it today, even though nearly 40 years have passed. A must for music lovers and country fans especially!!! If I could only own one of Hags albums, this is the one! Dana B.

Stellar pair of 1971 albums continues Haggard's incredible run
When he started his run on Capitol with 1965's Strangers and 1966's Swinging Doors/TheBottle Let Me Down, he packed each with superb originals and beautifully interpreted covers. Merle Haggard proved himself a triple-threat country legend - a compelling live performer, a repeat hitmaker and one of the genre's best album artists. Even more impressive is that the quality never dipped as he released multiple albums per year throughout the 1960s and well into the 1970s. By the time he released this pair in 1971, Haggard was an international success (having been named the "Entertainer of the Year" in 1970 by both the ACM and CMA) and so deeply in the zone as to make these works seem completely effortless.

1971's Hag followed tribute albums to Jimmie Rogers (Same Train, A Different Time) and Bob Wills (A Tribute to the Best Damn Fiddle Player in the World), and found Haggard returning to songwriting. He sustains the melancholy broken hearts of earlier albums in troubled romances, teary goodbyes and even a happy-go-lucky capitulation to bad luck. Though Haggard's politics had been misinterpreted with "Okie Muskogee," the social tolerance of "The Farmer's Daughter" is plainspoken, and his call to a higher authority, "Jesus, Take a Hold" is clear in its assessment of the world's ills. He holds true to himself with "I Can't Be Myself" and closes the album with an inventory of some unusual experiential riches.

The album's covers include Redd Stewart and Ernest Tubb's "Soldier's Last Letter," as sadly poignant in the Vietnam era as it had been during World War II. Dave Kirby's down-and-out "Sidewalks of Chicago" mirrors Haggard's own hard-luck songs, as does the cast off alcoholic of Dean Holloway's "No Reason to Quit. " This CD reissue adds three bonus tracks: a superb version of Hank Cochran's outlaw declaration "I'll Be a Hero (When I Strike)," a relaxed jazz-tinged cover of the blues "Trouble in Mind," and a previously unreleased cover of the tin pan alley standard "I Ain't Got Nobody" whose lively yodel, fiddle and swing beat recall Haggard's love of Bob Wills.

The year's second album, Someday We'll Look Back, is more subdued, with several ballads lined by strings and pedal steel. There's infidelity, relationships teetering on the edge and a tearful memory of better days, but there are also moments of optimism as Haggard dreams of a brighter future and considers dipping his toe back into the mainstream. There's also some twangy Bakersfield-styled guitar licks and songs of the California fields. Dottie West's "One Row at a Time" follows a Georgian's migration to the coast, Haggard's classic "Tulare Dust" sings of the hard labor at journey's end, and Dallas Frazier's "California Cottonfields" surveys the Golden State's broken promise.

The gulf between hippies and straights is bridged once again on "Big Time Annie's Square," and the hopeless dreams of a convicted man provide grist for "Huntsville. " The bonuses include a cover of Bob Wills' fiddle tune, "Spanish Two Step," and Haggard's multi-symptom "Worried, Unhappy, Lonesome and Sorry. " Haggard's first dozen albums are remarkable in their consistency, and though this pair, much like the last few, consolidates rather than pushes forward, they remain among the best in his catalog.

Capitol's series of two-fers include both original album covers (one on each side of the booklet), color photo reproductions, and newly struck liner notes. Though Haggard fans are likely to have a lot of this material on previous single-CD reissues or box sets, the logical album pairings and remastered 24-bit sound make these sets especially attractive. The only real nits one could pick is the absence of session credits, master numbering and chart positioning, as well as a lack of detail on some of the bonus tracks. These are minor issues for such a stellar series of five-star reissues. [�2009 hyperbolium dot com].

Like Finding An Old Friend
I had searched for "Someday We'll Look Back" for over 30 years, ever since my father took it to a party and lost it. When I saw that this compilation was out, I couldn't believe my eyes. (It was the only album that he and I both liked). I was unable to find more than a few songs from it here and there. Capitol pulled it from the shelves- I thought for good. All I had were the memories of the heartfelt songs that told the stories of so many folks who traded the midwest for California, and the generations that followed. Not many of us can recall our families much farther back than our grandfathers. War had uprooted us and spread us all over the country, so we don't have a strong storytelling tradition. Merle has preserved those times in his songs. "Hag" is a good collection, but much more traditional and staid than "Someday," relying on themes much more common in country music in those days.
"Someday We'll Look Back" is timeless in the way it explores themes of loneliness, alienation and yet redemption and the hope of happiness down the road. It can almost be considered a concept album similar to Willie Nelson's "Red Headed Stranger's" bleak and dusty, but hopeful world. Roger Miller's "Train of Life" evokes the feeling that so many World War Two veterans felt at the time: "I'm tired of having no future, just livin' on things that I've done, I'm tired of sittin' on the sidetrack, watchin' the main line run. " What Springsteen was to cars, Haggard was to trains.
The often covered "California Cottonfields," " One Row at a Time, and "Tulare Dust," are probably the most evocative work that Haggard has done, and could be musical accompniment to "The Grapes of Wrath. " Even Haggard's more familiar themes of failed relationships and guilt are explored with such grace and understanding, that they rise above the bleak landscapes that they paint and lift us with them. "One Sweet Hello," "I'd Rather Be Gone,"Carolyn, and "The Only Trouble With Me," stand up well, especially against the shallow, cliched backdroup of "country" music today.
Most importantly to me, listening to "Someday We'll Look Back" has given me new perspective in what it was like to be a man from the 1940's to the 70's, trying to survive, raise a family, without jumping on a train, like so many of his chaaracters have done. Haggard took a long look back with his late 60's and 70's albums, and it's been fun to revisit a master story teller and be taken back with him.

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Haggard shines as he expands his songwriting territory
It's not really heavy on those wicked steel guitar licks or the go-for-broke background singers that I love so well, but guess what?? It's great anyway! On these two records, Merle really stretches out his songwriting, drawing more from blues, jazz and folk than ever before and crafting the most personal and emotional songs he'd ever done. Out of all the recently remastered/reissued Merle Haggard twofers, Hag/Someday We'll Look Back is the least characteristically "Bakersfield"-sounding one.

The first album, Hag, probably has more of a conservative bent than the second, with the heartfelt "Soldier's Last Letter," the plea "Jesus, Take A Hold," and the tender "Farmer's Daughter. " Throughout the album, Hag uses subtle textures (listen to the piano on "Shelly's Winter Love") to convey his subtly powerful songs. "Sidewalks of Chicago is another highlight with its hard living tale. Other highlights are the honky-tonkin' "I'm A Good Loser," the homage-paying yodel in "I Ain't Got Nobody," and the humorous, true-to-life "I've Done it All. " Any fan of Merle Haggard knows he really did do it all, working the cotton fields and doing time in jail before becoming one of country music's greatest songwriters.

The second album, Someday We'll Look Back, might be even better than Hag. Like Hag, Someday We'll Look Back reflects subtly on life's hard times (especially with the title track) but it also finds Merle wistfully telling tales from his childhood. "One Row at a Time," "California Cotton Fields" and "Tulare Dust" all reflect a rough but character-building agrarian childhood and a sentimental sympathy for Haggard's hard-working father. "Huntsville" is a great, brooding somewhat autobiographical prison song with some great lines--"the man better keep both eyes on me, or they're gonna lose ol' Hag. " The album also has some of Haggard's trademark humorous and upbeat moments, like on the easy-going "The Only Trouble With Me" and on the rock-influenced "Worried, Unhappy, Lonesome and Sorry. "

I heartily recommend this economically-priced twofer to people who are already fans of Hag--I think you'll really enjoy the songwriting risks and growth he accomplishes. I also recommend Merle to fans of classic rock and folk--modern country music's sorry state sometimes obscures the genre's rich history--there's a lot to enjoy here, even for rock and roll fans who usually think they're too cool for country.

The Hag
I bought it because I have a friend that needed the words to "Jesus Take Ahold" as he is thinking of putting it on his next CD. I was very pleased with the CD and enjoyed hearing some of the old songs again. I might have to get another one since he now has it.

You can see a complete list of all Merle Haggard discography, or go back to the Merle Haggard tabs. There is also a good guide on how to read guitar tabs here.