Ethan Hawke

And I found myself thinking a lot about Merle Haggard and how much he crossed the boundaries between left and right and what a free thinker he was.

You know, he spent the first nine years of his professional stardom as the new Woody Guthrie,

And then he wrote this funny song called Okie from Muskogee that was basically a really, really funny song asking the left wing to consider how the right wing might feel.

And the left wing responded with absolute vehemence and felt betrayed.

and were angry at him.

And then he was claimed by Nixon and touted as the voice of the silent majority.

And then he went on and wrote songs about civil rights that weren't released and promoted because the label weren't excited by that, or they were worried he was going to lose fans.

And

He wrote pro-immigration songs and those were ignored.

And then slowly the right wing lost interest in him as their spokesperson.

He just was always himself and he didn't follow anyone else's bandwagon.

And he was a humanist.

And I thought he might be a great person to revisit right now as our country is so kind of team oriented and not speaking to each other.

And that was the pull.

Not to mention he's a genius songwriter and he's one of the great American songwriters.

And I feel that his star has been receding in popular culture.

And I kind of wanted to remind everybody about what a legend he was.

You know, why don't you pick your favorite version of My Funny Valentine?

Let's do Chet, because that song's been following me my whole life.

I don't know.