InRO Weekly — Volume 1, Issue 11

KICKING THE CANON
new contract with Capitol; another, “(My Friends Are Gonna Be) Strangers,” gave Haggard his much sought after first top 10 single on
the country charts. “Strangers” also became the namesake for both Hag’s debut studio album on Capitol and his newly-minted backing
band. Even more importantly, though, Haggard would continue to tap Anderson for his next two albums, including the one that
represents not only the gold standard of his Capitol years (1965–1977), but the album that best represents his whole ethos as an artist.
I’m a Lonesome Fugitive was released in 1967, and led-off by a title track penned by Liz Anderson and her husband Casey that spent 15
weeks on the country singles chart, peaking at number one. For a time, many assumed that “I’m a Lonesome Fugitive" was an
autobiographical statement from Haggard, but the Andersons in fact were totally unaware of Hag’s still-fairly-recent bid in San
Quentin, or for that matter his youth spent fleeing law enforcement, when they played him the song — which was actually inspired by
the David Jansen-starring, 1965-1966 primetime TV series The Fugitive. Nonetheless, Hag’s obvious personal connection to the song,
and its chosen subject matter, informs this whole album, starting with the song that Hag chose as the B-side to “I’m a Lonesome
Fugitive”: “Someone Told My Story” (which Hag did write) almost functions as a wry acknowledgment of its counterpart, its stunned
narrator singing, "I could scarcely believe the song I heard…It was almost like I’d written every word." He’s nominally commenting on the
echoes of his own doomed romance that he hears in the jukebox’s lament, but plenty is left unsaid about the details of that
dissolution. The song gains even more weight on the album, where its lover's longing is fleshed out on some adjacent weepers ("Mary's
Mine" and "Whatever Happened to Me"). But more importantly, it’s also contextualized by songs that represent the other half of this
album's title — alternately rowdy and haggard (sorry) songs about the inevitable fallout from living a life looking over your shoulder for
the law.
Hag's pseudo-concept album never stops wrestling with the rich tension between its central character’s vulnerability and his
toughness. That may not be the most original of cowboy archetypes (the presence of Jimmie Rodgers’ classic "My Rough and Rowdy
Ways" acknowledges the lineage), but arguably there's never been a country singer with a voice more capable of selling both sides, the
authentic grit and the sensitive pathos, and his execution is flawless. From the anxiousness of the metronomic lick that soundtracks
"I'm a Lonesome Fugitive," like a ticking clock hot on the escaped con’s trail; to the braiding of romantic and penal angst on "House of
Memories" ("My house is a prison / Where memories surround me"); to the sober storytelling of "Life in Prison" (one of Hag's best-ever
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