Merle on Leno......

Jay Ganz · From: Out Behind The Barn

According to all the listings I've seen, he's scheduled to be on tonight (Tuesday).
But then again....who knows Question

They're not always accurate.

Randy Mason · From: Nashville, Tennessee, USA

my friend who is out with Merle, said Merle wanted to sing a new song about Hillary running for president, but The Tonight Show didn't want him to do it, so Merle cancelled and went home. There you have it.

scott murray · From: Asheville, NC

i can't believe they would censor the great Hag. it would've fit right in with Bill Maher as a guest, too. their musical guests are usually just terrible. makes me sick.

no respect...
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Billy Wilson · From: El Cerrito, California, USA

What's the gist of the new Hillary song?

Bill McCloskey · Posted 21 Feb 2007 4:55 am

"i can't believe they would censor the great Hag."

Interesting. How come every time a performer with liberal views expresses a political theme we get endless lectures about how entertainers should just sing and keep their views to themselves. But when someone with conservative views does the same thing, it is a lack of respect.

BTW, who was the guy who replaced Hag? I had to tivo it because a good friend of our's brother was the bass player.

Brandon Ordoyne · From: Needville,Texas USA

I stayed up last night to watch Hag on Leno, was disappointed he wasnt one there, turned it off, and went to bed! I never heard of the musical guest they had, cant remember his name anyhow!
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Pete Finney · From: Nashville Tn.

I also am really curious about this new song, I can imagine it being anywhere from supportive of Hillary to being scathingly negative. The only thing I can find online (from the "Wall Street Journal") suggests that the song is positive about Hillary; anybody know what the lyrics actually are?

In any case, one shouldn't be too quick to simply brand Haggard as conservative, he's way too complicated to be defined by one political label .. Among other things he's been very vocally against the Iraq war, and also totally supportive of three musical females (whose name cannot be mentioned on this forum apparently...)

Al Marcus · From: Cedar Springs,MI USA (deceased)

I stayed up too and was disappointed. ....al. Sad

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Don Walters · From: Saskatchewan Canada

Hag conservative? Ever hear his recording of Irma Jackson ?

Bill McCloskey · Posted 21 Feb 2007 8:27 am

From the Wall Street Journal.

New Theme Song for Clinton Camp?
Merle Haggard — country music legend and Hillary Clinton fan?

Reports from out West say that the country music star has added a new song to his playlist of late, called simply: “Hillary.”

According to New West, a Montana-based Internet news site, the 69-year-old singer launched into the new song halfway thru a set in Spokane on Monday: “It had a one-word title, he said, and was likely to ‘piss off’ at least half of the audience. A few might even walk out, he said. But, an assistant brought out a music stand and Merle started crooning about a woman named ‘Hillary.’”

“The country needs to be honest,” he sang. “Change needs to be large.”

“Let’s put a woman in charge.”

Apparently, the song is a rather new addition to Haggard’s set list, as he told the Seattle Times earlier this month: “I wrote a thing yesterday mornin’ and we couldn’t get it recorded ’til about noon…I think it may be the biggest thing that I’ve written in 30 years. And I’ll just give you the title of it and see what you think…It’s called ‘Hillary’. (He laughs out loud). Tell you what, it’s good!”

A review of that Feb. 11 show in the Seattle Weekly noted that, “Things took a bit of a sideways turn when he brought up the subject of Hillary Clinton’s White House bid, a topic the slightly conservative crowd greeted with a disorienting conflation of cheers and jeers.”

One fan (“swingin drawers”) posted on Haggard’s official fan messageboard, that he also played the song in Portland last Saturday and “everyone took it as it was meant to be: tongue in cheek. It got a lot of laughs.” –Amy Schatz

Dustin Elmer · From: Clinton, New York, USA

it was Rodney Atkins on last night. right after Bill Maher said the only use he had for country music was to "make fun of it". Rolling Eyes

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Stu Schulman · From: Ulster Park New Yawk (deceased)

I guess it was Rodney Atkins last night,tall guy with a bunch of guitar players jumpin' around,and a fiddle player ...everyone was smiling,and then I woke up and they were gone.
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scott murray · From: Asheville, NC

yeah, i certainly wouldn't label Merle a conservative. they might not smoke marijuana in Muskogee, but they do in Bakersfield...

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Many people are surprised to hear Merle Haggard criticize the Bush administration, and they ask him if he's still the same Hag who penned the stubbornly patriotic "The Fightin' Side of Me" during the Vietnam War. To that, Haggard replies, "I'm red, white and blue all the way. I just wonder, did we really vote this president in? Did he really win? Does the rest of the world see us as the bullies of the planet?"

Haggard being misunderstood by his listeners is nothing new. In 1969, at the peak of the counterculture and widespread student protest against U.S. involvement in Vietnam, Hag released "Okie From Muskogee," and it shot straight to the top of the country charts. In the song's opening lines, Haggard earnestly sings, "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/'Cause we like livin' right and bein' free." Conservative America quickly and enthusiastically adopted "Okie" as an anthem that reflected their values. Richard Nixon sent Haggard a letter of congratulations, George Wallace wanted him for his presidential campaign, and the white supremacist David Duke asked him to play a private party. Says Haggard, "I told him [Duke] to go get f***ed."

Most people did not realize (and some still don't) that "Okie From Muskogee" was a social commentary that did not necessarily reflect Haggard's personal worldview. "Ya know, I'm like an actor, and whatever role you see an actor in shouldn't have anything to do with his own personality, but it does, of course," he says. "That song typecasted me for a long time.

"'Okie From Muskogee' was written about my father, and it was my intention to try to see things from his viewpoint. Had he been alive at that time, I think he woulda said, 'We're happy with the way things are here in the middle of Oklahoma, and we're really not wantin' to get out in the street and bitch like the people in Frisco.' The song was a contrast to what was going on, and there was nobody speaking up for [people like my dad], and I thought I'd jump out there and write a song for him."

Haggard continues, "It ['Okie From Muskogee'] nearly stopped my career. They were beginning to play me on rock stations, and it stopped all that. A lot of people who analyzed my career said that song was probably a mistake. But Willie Nelson said, 'Hey, if you don't want the son of a bitch, I'll trade you "Crazy" for it!'" Hag laughs a hearty laugh and goes on to say that he doesn't really have regrets about the song.

"If I was to do it over again, it would take a lot more thought. I thought it was funny. The song was humorous. It was like the epitome of the ignorance on certain subjects. But I'll be damned if people like Wallace and Nixon didn't take it for the truth. It makes me wonder what kind of politicians we've got in [Washington] now. Do they have the same mentality as they did during the days of 'Okie From Muskogee'?"

In a 1974 interview, Haggard revealed that Muskogee was the only place where he didn't smoke marijuana. (Phoenix New Times - May 9, 2002)
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Mark Eaton · Posted 21 Feb 2007 9:28 am

Trying to "pigeon hole" the stance of Merle Haggard on politics is a mistake I've seen made a number of times in both conversation, and on internet forums.

It reminds me of when President Reagan missed the point of Springsteen's "Born In The USA." Apparently he only caught the lyrics of the chorus on that one.
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Pete Finney · From: Nashville Tn.

A few more clues about the song, the first part of a review from the "Seattle Times":

"Concert Review
Merle Haggard | Clear voice, vision

By Patrick MacDonald

"Let's put a woman in charge!" Merle Haggard sang in his new song, "Hillary," at his concert Sunday night at the Paramount, as the near-capacity crowd whooped and jeered.

While it may sound like an endorsement, Sen. Clinton will probably not want to make "Hillary" her presidential campaign song — not with its winking references to "first man Bill" and especially its line about "kneeling down in the corridors of power," which got the biggest response.

"Hillary" is timely and provocative but won't go down as one of Hag's best. There were plenty of others in the show, however, that were testimony to his status as one of the greatest songwriters in country-music history."

This whole thread probably belongs in "Music" instead of "Steel Players" doesn't it? (Nobody's even mentioned Norman Hamlet!)

Mark Eaton · Posted 21 Feb 2007 9:49 am

Well then, let's hear it for Norm!

Gotta support the California steelers! Very Happy

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Joey Ace · From: Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

You wouldn't have to pay her as much.

David Mason · From: Cambridge, MD, USA

...do her own cooking, cleaning and laundry too....

Leroy Riggs · From: Looney Tunes, R.I.P.

Barry Blackwood · Posted 21 Feb 2007 4:17 pm

You go, Merle. Leno's a putz - just ask George Lopez, and Bill Mahar? I liked him until I read that quote. Bill can pi$$ off too. My 2 cents.