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Has happened to the industry.
Tom T. Hall writes from the wounded veteran's point of view in Mama, Bake a Pie (Daddy, Kill a Chicken):
Thank you, sir, and yes, sir,
It was worth it for the old red, white, and blue.
And since I won't be walking,
I suppose I'll save some money buying shoes.
One sign of country music's robust health is that it can now tolerate high jinks and a good spoofing. My Girl Bill is beginning to get considerable air play, and in it Jim Stafford raises the rare—for country, at least—specter of homosexuality before he eases out with a trick ending. Composer-Singer Martin Mull, who satirized rock in Dueling Tubas, turns to country in a new album called Normal. One song, Jesus Christ Football Star, pokes fun at Bible Belt anthems:
Satan used an outside kick,
Thank God that Matthew was thinking quick. . .
Backwoods Appeal. In the midst of country's booming supermarket of traditional goods and new brands, teaser displays and soaring profits, Merle Haggard stands virtually alone as a pure, proud and prominent link between country's past and present. He is not about to record with a couple of dozen violins to woo the easy-listening audience or hire a rock band to turn on the kids. Haggard has wide enough range and appeal already. Two of country's best-selling performers, Charley Pride and Charlie Rich, sing primarily heart songs. Tom T. Hall specializes in social commentary. Haggard does both, and more.
The only other country singer with Haggard's kind of versatility is Johnny Cash, 42, who unfortunately weakened his once authentic backwoods appeal with a series of network TV commercials for industrial America. Cash may restore some of his lost luster with a new single called Ragged Old Flag, which plays on America's patriotic wish to believe in itself, Watergate or no. Against the background of snare drums, banjos and a reverential chorus, Cash tells how the flag was shot up and torn at the Alamo and Chancellorsville, and then intones:
She waved from our ships upon the briny foam,
And now they ve about quit waving her back here at home...
And the Government for which she stands
Is scandalized throughout the land.
Merle Haggard has also played the embattled public patriot. To many Americans he is still most famous for his song Okie from Muskogee. It burst on the nation in 1969, when the hippies were beginning to lose their charm and hardhats and other members of the so-called silent majority were beginning to find more and more solace in the Nixon Administration.
We don't smoke marijuana in Muskogee,
And we don't take our trips on LSD
And we don't burn our draft cards down on Main Street,
But we like living right and being free
And I'm proud to be an Okie from Muskogee
A place where even squares can have a ball
We still wave Ol' Glory down at the courthouse
White lightning's still the biggest thrill of all.