Merle Haggard

Went with, wound up being executed in the gas chamber. He went out and held court in the street, killed a highway patrolman. And so it was really good that I didn't go.

Went with, wound up being executed in the gas chamber. He went out and held court in the street, killed a highway patrolman. And so it was really good that I didn't go.

Went with, wound up being executed in the gas chamber. He went out and held court in the street, killed a highway patrolman. And so it was really good that I didn't go.

Yeah, I've had a lot of those things in my life. And, you know, those are the sort of things that... that a guy unknowingly like myself, I guess I was gathering up meat for songs, you know. I don't know what I was doing. I really kind of was crazy as a kid, and then all of a sudden, you know, while I was in San Quentin, I just...

Yeah, I've had a lot of those things in my life. And, you know, those are the sort of things that... that a guy unknowingly like myself, I guess I was gathering up meat for songs, you know. I don't know what I was doing. I really kind of was crazy as a kid, and then all of a sudden, you know, while I was in San Quentin, I just...

Yeah, I've had a lot of those things in my life. And, you know, those are the sort of things that... that a guy unknowingly like myself, I guess I was gathering up meat for songs, you know. I don't know what I was doing. I really kind of was crazy as a kid, and then all of a sudden, you know, while I was in San Quentin, I just...

I one day understood that I saw the light and I just didn't want to do that no more. And I realized what a mess I'd made out of my life. And I got out of there and stayed out of there. Never to go back and went and apologized to all the people I'd wronged and tried to pay back the people that I'd taken money from, borrowed money from or whatever.

I one day understood that I saw the light and I just didn't want to do that no more. And I realized what a mess I'd made out of my life. And I got out of there and stayed out of there. Never to go back and went and apologized to all the people I'd wronged and tried to pay back the people that I'd taken money from, borrowed money from or whatever.

I one day understood that I saw the light and I just didn't want to do that no more. And I realized what a mess I'd made out of my life. And I got out of there and stayed out of there. Never to go back and went and apologized to all the people I'd wronged and tried to pay back the people that I'd taken money from, borrowed money from or whatever.

I think when I was 31 years old, I paid everybody back that I'd ever taken anything from and including my mother.

I think when I was 31 years old, I paid everybody back that I'd ever taken anything from and including my mother.

I think when I was 31 years old, I paid everybody back that I'd ever taken anything from and including my mother.

It was just obvious. I don't think there was ever any time that anybody in my family was worried about me staying with this. It was just the way that some people grow up in the Army, and it's hard to be 18 years old. They send 18-year-old boys to war because they don't know what to do with them. And I was one that... I wound up going to prison rather than war.

It was just obvious. I don't think there was ever any time that anybody in my family was worried about me staying with this. It was just the way that some people grow up in the Army, and it's hard to be 18 years old. They send 18-year-old boys to war because they don't know what to do with them. And I was one that... I wound up going to prison rather than war.

It was just obvious. I don't think there was ever any time that anybody in my family was worried about me staying with this. It was just the way that some people grow up in the Army, and it's hard to be 18 years old. They send 18-year-old boys to war because they don't know what to do with them. And I was one that... I wound up going to prison rather than war.

And instead of growing up in the middle of a battlefield with bullets flying around me, I grew up on the isolation ward of Death Row. And that's where the song Mama Tried gets close to being autobiographical.

And instead of growing up in the middle of a battlefield with bullets flying around me, I grew up on the isolation ward of Death Row. And that's where the song Mama Tried gets close to being autobiographical.

And instead of growing up in the middle of a battlefield with bullets flying around me, I grew up on the isolation ward of Death Row. And that's where the song Mama Tried gets close to being autobiographical.

Yeah, I was... I got... Caught for making beer. Making some beer up there, and I got too much of my own beer and got drunk in the yard and got arrested. It's hard to get arrested in San Quentin, but I did. And they sent me to what was known as the Shelf. And the Shelf is part of the North Block, which you share with the inmates on death row.

Yeah, I was... I got... Caught for making beer. Making some beer up there, and I got too much of my own beer and got drunk in the yard and got arrested. It's hard to get arrested in San Quentin, but I did. And they sent me to what was known as the Shelf. And the Shelf is part of the North Block, which you share with the inmates on death row.