Thursday, September 10, 2020

Proud of Who I Am

BBBH and I truly enjoy Merle Haggard's songs and his performance of them.  He did a number that goes, "I'd like to hold my head up, be proud of who I am.  But they won't let my secret go untold.  I paid the debt I owed 'em but they're still not satisfied.  Now I'm a branded man, out in the cold."  And so on and so forth.  I sing along with him betimes (through the miracle of technology, though he is no longer with us).  Possibly inappropriately, for I've never spent a day in jail in my life.  I sang his song "Tonight the Bottle Let Me Down" as a public performance one time.  Back home that evening BBBH chastised me.  "You can't do drinking songs.  You've never had a drink in your life."  Well, okay then, but call it empathy or whatever.  I like the song."  I sketched this as a tribute to Merle's plight




2 comments:

Secondary Roads said...

If the world had more empathy, it would look a lot different than it does today.

vanilla said...

Empathy does seem to be a commodity in short supply these days-- or given the human condition, perhaps forever.