What Merle Haggard Learned from the Train Hobos

The late country legend on surviving prison, quitting cannabis, and popping pills with Johnny Cash

You don’t have to like country music to think Merle Haggard was a badass.

Not only did he write and record some of the most timeless classics in American music, from “Okie From Muskogee” to “I Think I’ll Just Stay Here And Drink,” he also rubbed elbows with train hobos, went through wives like Tic Tacs, and served time in more prisons than even the most committed career criminals, including a stay in the infamous San Quentin (where he first saw Johnny Cash perform in 1958).

Until his death eight years ago—he died on April 6th, which just so happened to be his birthday—Haggard survived lung cancer with the unblinking grit of John Wayne (although, unlike the Duke, he quit smoking after losing a chunk of his right lung.) For a guy who’s cheated death more than most of us cheat on our taxes, the fact that he was still making music and touring the world just months before his death at 79 is proof that he was exactly as hardcore as his legion of fans always believed.

When I interviewed him, during the last year of his life, I learned several things about the man known affectionately by his friends as “The Hag”. One, whenever he laughed, he coughed in a way that sounded like a grenade being detonated under a wet down comforter. And two, he told stories with the same narrative consistency of Grandpa Abe Simpson. But unlike the Simpsons patriarch, and pretty much all older people who brag about the exaggerated brutality of their youth, Haggard’s tales are actually true.

Eric Spitznagel: The adjective most often used to describe you is “outlaw.” Do you take it as a compliment?

Merle Haggard: I like to think what they’re meaning to say is that I’m somebody who goes against the grain and tries to do what’s right.

ES: I’ve always thought outlaw meant criminal. But you’re not breaking any laws with your music, right?

MH: Not that I know of. We might not be doing country music in the way Nashville would recommend, but I don’t think it’s illegal.

ES: There’s a song on your last album called “Oil Tanker Train,” where you sing about growing up on a boxcar. That’s just lyrical hyperbole, right? You didn’t seriously spend your childhood on a train car.

MH: I did. This was during the Great Depression, and like a lot of people, my father migrated from Oklahoma to California. He bought a vacant lot of land in this little oil town, and there was an abandoned boxcar on it that he converted into a home for our family. You wouldn’t know what it was if you were just driving by. But if you walked up and took a closer look, you’d be, “Oh yeah, this used to be a boxcar!” We were a stone’s throw away from a railroad track, and every day these big trains loaded with crude oil would go by the house and shake the rafters. Even before we could hear it coming, the ground would start vibrating. You’d think it was an earthquake.

ES: Didn’t you jump on moving freight trains as a kid?

MH: Yeah, we used to go up there and put pennies on the railroad track and try to jump in the open cars when the trains passed by. Our parents never knew, of course. They’d have killed us if they had.