In 1970, Merle Haggard released a song called “The Fightin’ Side of Me.” It had been 10 years since he’d been released from San Quentin Prison where he’d been an inmate when Johnny Cash played his famous concert. Haggard’s life had taken a turn since being released from prison, and in 1972 he received a presidential pardon from Republican president Ronald Reagan. Angered by seeing hippies and anti-Vietnam War protests, Merle Haggard pens a very patriotic song which will become a huge hit called Fightin’ Side of Me. In it, he warns those who criticize his country and the way it’s run that they’re making him mad enough to fight them. Here’s a bit of it:
When they’re runnin’ down my country, man
They’re walkin’ on the fightin’ side of me
Yeah, walkin’ on the fightin’ side of me
Runnin’ down a way of life our fightin’ men have fought and died to keep
If you don’t love it, leave it
Let this song I’m singin’ be a warnin’
When you’re runnin’ down my country, man
You’re walkin’ on the fightin’ side of me
The message of the song is straightforward. Stop criticizing the U.S.A.’s decisions and the wars it fights. When you “talk down” on the country and the things it does, you anger me to the point of fighting you. You can here in his voice and see on his face in the 1970s video the deep pride he takes in being an American and how upset he is when people criticize his country.
In March of 1973, Merle Haggard heads to the White House to play a special concert for president Richard Nixon to celebrate the first lady’s birthday. As he comes on stage, an American flag raises dramatically behind the band. The second song of the set is “Fightin’ Side of Me.” There in front on the president and a large crowd, he sings about how much it riles him up to hear anyone talk bad about the country and things its leadership does. Nixon applauds with the rest of the audience.
In between songs Haggard says, “I don’t know what to say except that this will probably be the greatest evening of my life.” He shares a short poem written to the first lady – later Nixon comes up on stage and tells a beaming Haggard how much he loved the show.
Just a few months later, In October of 1973, president Nixon’s impeachment will begin as it comes to light that he’s done some very illegal things and has been unsuccessful in covering them up. By August the next year he resigns from the presidency rather than be removed after the Watergate scandal has been uncovered and its clear he will not be able to remain in office. One can only imagine how disappointing it must have been for Haggard. Here’s a man who would just as soon fight you as listen to you criticize America and its leaders. He goes from having the night of his life playing for president Nixon to realizing he, like the rest of America, was being lied to.
Some years later in 1981 Merle Haggard releases another hit song called “Are the Good Times Really Over.” Here he’s lamenting the “good times” being on the way out and the snowball headed for hell times coming in. He writes,
I wish coke was still cola
And a joint was a bad place to be
And it was back before Nixon lied to us
All on TV
Before microwave ovens
When a girl could still cook
And still would
Is the best of the free life behind us now?
And are the good times really over for good?
Haggard laments that Nixon was not the man he said he was, that he “lied to us all on TV.” The protests against Nixon and the war which had ignited Merle Haggard’s rage are no longer the focus of his discomfort. He’s actually agreeing with them – Nixon wasn’t a great leader. He lied to us all.
Fast forward some more years, Haggard will continue to develop his own views. In 2003, he’ll describe himself during the 1970s when he’s writing songs like “Fightin’ Side of Me” and “Okie From Muskogee” saying “As a human being, I’ve learned [more]…I was dumb as a rock.” He would state explicitly that his views about those hippies had changed, saying:
“My views on marijuana have totally changed. I think we were brainwashed, and I think anybody that doesn’t know that needs to get up and read and look around, get their own information. It’s a cooperative government project to make us think marijuana should be outlawed.”
I actually hadn’t heard “Fightin’ Side of Me” until a few days ago. I had posted on social media two questions related to the longstanding U.S. support of Israel through defense spending and policy decisions, even as Israel engages in perpetrating a genocide in Gaza.
Now here if you’re feeling angry or upset as I say Israel is committing genocide, this would be a really good time for you to take that accusation seriously and look into what is going on. You could start here with a fairly conservative Christian with a PhD doing interviews: interview 1, interview 2.
The two questions I asked in the social media post were: “Are we still proud to be Americans? Do we even have any idea what ‘we’ do”? In a response, someone posted the Merle Haggard song and let me know I had gotten onto their fightin’ side. It makes me think back to the evolution of Haggard, how he was able to move from the stance of being triggered by anyone who dared question the authority and decision of the US government (a very rigid and very blind position) to a stance of realizing that the country he loved had some really deep flaws which needed to be called out.
Friends, there is plenty to be anxious about in these times. Currently, I encourage you to look seriously at the way the USA is financially backing a genocide against Palestinians. Like Merle Haggard, we are being lied to on TV. Lied to by our current president and many who’ve come before him from both parties. Israel is working to cleanse a people group, and they’re doing it with US money. They’ve already killed more than 50,000 civilian people, at least 15,000 of those are children (they’ve injured another 100,000). They are purposefully bombing schools, hospitals, and refuge tents. Many Christians support this slaughter – even as our Christian brothers and sisters in Palestine are the ones being killed and displaced in God’s name for what is supposed to be God’s will.
It is Christians being bombed and driven out of their homes in the name of God. This morning was Palm Sunday – Israel bombed a hospital run by Christians and killed a little girl. Any god who needs his children to slaughter each other with bombs to accomplish his will is one confusing son of a gun. And if hearing that makes you mad, gets on your fightin’ side, I’d encourage you to consider the example of Merle Haggard. When our grandchildren study history, they’ll learn about the US’s senseless killing in Vietnam which the hippies of Haggard’s day were protesting. And they’ll learn about the senseless killing in Palestine that the US funded and Christians largely stayed quiet about.
Will we have the moral courage of Merle Haggard to admit we have been dumb as a rock in our blindness? Or will we keep quiet and keep blasting patriotic tunes to drown out the violence our taxes pay for?
javen.bear. 