Okie from Muskogee (song)

"Okie from Muskogee" is a song recorded by American country music artist Merle Haggard, which he co-wrote with Roy Edward Burris. "Okie" is a slang name for someone from Oklahoma, and Muskogee is the 11th largest city in the state. The song was released in September 1969 as first single and title track from the album Okie from Muskogee, and was one of the most famous songs of Haggard's career.

Background

Haggard told The Boot that he wrote the song after he became disheartened watching Vietnam War protests and incorporated that emotion and viewpoint into song. Haggard says, "When I was in prison, I knew what it was like to have freedom taken away. Freedom is everything. During Vietnam, there were all kinds of protests. Here were these [servicemen] going over there and dying for a cause — we don't even know what it was really all about. And here are these young kids, that were free, bitching about it. There's something wrong with that and with [disparaging] those poor guys." He states that he wrote the song to support the troops.

Okie from Muskogee

Okie from Muskogee is a live album by Merle Haggard and the Strangers released in October 1969 on Capitol Records.

Background

The album was a recorded performance at the Civic Center in Muskogee, Oklahoma on October 10, 1969, the day before the studio version of "Okie from Muskogee" hit the national country charts.

In the documentary Beyond Nashville, Haggard claims the song, which he wrote with drummer Eddie Burris on his bus, was more of a wistful tribute to his late father than any kind of political statement: "My dad passed away when I was nine, and I don't know if you've ever thought about somebody you've lost and you say, 'I wonder what so-and-so would think about this?' I was drivin' on Interstate 40 and I saw a sign that said "19 Miles to Muskogee." Muskogee was always referred to in my childhood as 'back home.' So I saw that sign and my whole childhood flashed before my eyes and I thought, 'I wonder what dad would think about the youthful uprising that was occurring at the time, the Janis Joplins...I understood 'em, I got a long with it, but what if he was to come alive at this moment? And I thought, what a way to describe the kind of people in America that are still sittin' in the center of the country sayin', 'What is goin' on on these campuses?'" In the American Masters episode about his life and career, however, a more defiant Haggard states that the song was more than a satire: "That's how I got into it with the hippies...I thought they were unqualified to judge America, and I thought they were lookin' down their noses at something that I cherished very much, and it pissed me off. And I thought, 'You sons of bitches, you've never been restricted away from this great, wonderful country, and yet here you are in the streets bitchin' about things, protesting about a war that they didn't know anymore about than I did. They weren't over there fightin' that war anymore than I was."

Okie

An Okie is a resident or native of Oklahoma. Like most terms that disparage specific groups, it was applied by the dominant cultural group. It is derived from the name of the state, similar to Texan or Tex for someone from Texas, or Arkie or Arkansawyer for a native of Arkansas.

In the 1930s in California, the term (often used in contempt) came to refer to very poor migrants from Oklahoma (and nearby states). The Dust Bowl, and the "Okie" migration of the 1930s brought in over a million newly displaced people; many headed to the farm labor jobs advertised in California's Central Valley.

Dunbar-Ortiz (1996) argues that 'Okie' denotes much more than being from Oklahoma. By 1950, four million individuals, or one quarter of all persons born in Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, or Missouri, lived outside the region, primarily in the West. Prominent Okies in the 1930s included Woody Guthrie. Most prominent in the late 1960s and 1970s were country musician Merle Haggard and writer Gerald Haslam.

Okie (disambiguation)

Okie is a term meaning resident of Oklahoma.

Okie may also refer to:

Music

See also

Okie (album)

Okie is the third album by JJ Cale. It was first released in 1974.

Several songs from the album were later covered by other artists, including "I Got the Same Old Blues", by Freddie King, Eric Clapton, Captain Beefheart, Bobby Bland, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Bryan Ferry; "Anyway the Wind Blows", by Brother Phelps in 1995 and Bill Wyman's Rhythm Kings in 1999; "Cajun Moon", by Herbie Mann on his 1976 album Surprises, with vocals by Cissy Houston. "I'd Like to Love You, Baby" was covered by Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers in 2003, appearing on their 2009 album, The Live Anthology.

Track listing

All tracks written by JJ Cale, except as noted

Personnel

Tracks 2 & 3–10 May 1973
Columbia Studio B, Nashville, Tennessee
Engineer, Stan Hutto
Bass, Tommy Cogbill
Drums, Karl Himmel
Piano, Jerry Smith
Rhythm guitar, Harold Bradley
Electric guitar, Grady Martin
Track 2
Gut slide guitar and vocal, JJ Cale
Track 3
Trumpet, George Tidwell
Trombone, Dennis Goode
Saxophone, Billy Pruett
Guitar and vocals, JJ Cale