I may have to take back the things that I have said over the past couple years about Merle Haggard. He released a new album called I Am What I Am in April, and while it may not be the best album he's ever done, it is certainly one of the best he's done in recent years. Two songs stand out in particular: the lead-off track called I've Seen it Go Away, and especially the third track titled Oil Tanker Train.

When I heard Oil Tanker Train for the first time I got chills up my spine. Here is the Hag at his best -- singing about a tanker train that used to run past his parents' converted boxcar home (actually it was a converted refrigerator car). In the song he recounts how his Mama used to be able to feel the train coming before she could see it, and she would tell little Merle to get up to the window to watch it go by. He sings, "Oh, I loved that old oil tanker train." The song ends with him recounting how he woke up one Christmas to find a toy tanker train set up around the tree. Absolutely heartwarming stuff.

But what really sets the lyrics off is his delivery of them -- he literally sounds almost exactly like he did in the seventies, when he was at his peak. It is kind of a ghostly experience at first, and I can't really hear that the lung cancer hurt his voice at all. His phrasing is a little "jazzy" in a couple of the lines, but this is the Hag that I grew up with, and the man that I used to admire more than I can possibly tell you. If he keeps writing songs like this and stays off the friggin' dope he may yet win back my total respect.

I have also read a couple interviews he did recently, and he sounds like a completely different person now that he's sober. Again, he sounds like the Hag that I grew up with: full of wisdom & common sense. In fact, he didn't make a single mention of the government laser-beaming the ocean to draw in hurricanes!