Merle Haggard – Mama Tried
Did Merle Haggard really turn 21 in prison, doing life without parole, as he proclaims in this 1968 classic? Sort of. He did turn 21 in prison, whilst serving a much shorter sentence for burglary, but, in demonstrable defence of the power of artistic licence, he once told a journalist, “I couldn’t get that to rhyme”. The track, which featured on the soundtrack of the western classic Three Killers, was inspired by Haggard’s increasingly troubled childhood and adolescence, after his mother struggled to keep him on the straight and narrow following his father’s premature death. The song spent four weeks at No.1 and, in its commercial success, turned a sad but familiar tale into a country music origin story. Its mournful dobro steel and pacy fingerpicked guitar are the perfect scene setters for the lonesome whistles and freight trains it describes, with Haggard’s vocal mysteriously straddling the line between regret and boasting, while resigned in its acknowledgements of his mother’s best but ultimately failed efforts. Its role in launching Haggard’s career combined with its cultural impact, cemented by its place in both the Grammy Hall of Fame and the National Recording Registry, lands it at number six in our ranking.- Holly Smith
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