Merle Haggard, who died yesterday on his 79th birthday, last spoke with GQ one afternoon in July before he played a show in Tilton, Georgia. The ostensible focus of the conversation was his longtime friend, Willie Nelson, with whom he’d recently made Django and Jimmie, their third in an occasional series of album collaborations. Maybe that’s why Haggard, well known for his refusal to suffer fools and their questions, was so amiable and easygoing, right up to his breezy final sign off: “Alright…bye bye” But as Haggard contemplated another legend of country music in his later days, perhaps inevitably he also found himself reflecting on his own life, too—about the kind of man he is, and his own journey and where it has brought him. Just a few more words from Merle Haggard that feel worth hearing—a last dose of his gentle, grizzly wisdom.
You brought a few songs to this new album, including “The Only Man Wilder Than Me.” Was that specifically written about Willie or did it just seem to fit?
Well, actually both of us wrote that song. Somebody said his name is not on it. He and I both wrote that thing, on the phone. I wrote one line and he’d write the other, back and forth.
Who’s idea was that?
I don’t remember. It just kind of came up. Maybe I said it first, I think: ‘You’re the only man wilder than me.’ And we went from there. We had it written in a very short time.
So which of you, thinking about it now, do you reckon is the wilder?
[chuckles] That’d be hard to say, I think. It’d be a good run for the money.
What makes Willie wild?
Well, his disposition. He caters to no one, except the people he wants to. He’s just his own man, always has been. And so am I.
What do you think made him that way?
He came out like that. He’s been that way all of his life. Ever since I’ve known him—I met him sometime in the early ‘60s, probably ‘63, ‘64, and he’s always been, I guess what people would describe as a rebel. He just does things his own way, and not the way that they’re being done.
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And it’s worked out pretty well.
I think so. I’d rather be what he is than what most of them are.
And you’ve got a lot of the same instinct?
Well, I try to be agreeable, but it’s hard to agree on some of the things that are happening nowadays. And if you don’t go against the grain you won’t have anything for people to care about. So.
I gather you and Willie played a bit of poker together while making the album.
Willie and I met in a poker game in 1963 or ‘64, and we’ve always loved to play poker and we play poker every chance we get.
Has one or the other of you been on top over the years?
I don’t know. I don’t remember any crippling event in either direction—we both played pretty good.
Someone told me that he might have won a bit during the album sessions.
Oh, he had a good hand. He had a full house, of small cards, a small full house, and I had two big pair, and I bet him $500 and he raised me $500 [laughs]. I’m a good loser, you know. You’re going to lose if you play poker—you’re gonna lose once in a while. You can’t win every hand.
I hear insists in being paid in cash.
Oh yeah, we play in cash. There’s no checks.
Can you describe his style of play?
Yeah. You can’t bluff Willie Nelson because he calls every goddamned bet. He’s predictable—you can bet your ass he’s going to call you. [laughs] I think he would probably be described as an aggressive player. He plays all the way through. He goes all the way to the end of the hand.
Why do you think the two of you enjoy that so much?
Well, poker is a game of the mind, you know—it’s not necessarily the cards. When you have somebody that calls every hand, it really changes things around. You have to reconsider.
And what’s your style?
I try to mix it up—I try to call sometimes, and try to know when to fold them. But Willie, he bypasses all that, he just calls every fucking hand. He does pretty well with his style.
I guess you’ll be seeing him at a show this weekend. More poker?
Yeah, probably so. We got our buses—our parking place is next to him so we can play.
How do you think Willie has changed over the years?
Well, the one thing I can tell is: he don’t run in his cowboy boots anymore. He runs in tennis shoes. We used to get up and run several miles in our cowboy boots. Lake Tahoe. I can remember doing that. He hasn’t changed a lot. He’s the same fellow. We’re both older. And uglier.
What do you think Willie’s talent is?
He’s a great songwriter. He’s a great entertainer. Like me he’s a struggling guitar player that loves it. We both reach for the same things, we both of us want to be jazz guitar players. And how good we are is up to the people. The title of the album Django and Jimmie comes from true heritage. He wanted to play guitar like Django Reinhardt, I wanted to sing like Jimmie Rodgers. I enjoy listening to Willie play and I think he enjoys listening to me. We try to play from the shoulder. At the moment.
Your new song “It’s All Going to Pot” seems to have struck quite a chord out there.
Oh, yeah. Well, it’s a matter of fact, there’s been a couple of states in the union that’s legalized it, and other ones trying to, and I think it’s probably a situation that’s coming to pass having to do with marijuana. Now “everything’s going to pot” doesn’t necessarily mean marijuana. There’s a lot of reasons for that song and a lot of things it’s probably implying.
But the two of you are having a good smoke together in the video.
I must admit I feel off the wagon and I did inhale.
Can you keep up with him?
No. Willie’s a hard man to keep up with.
What do you think motivates Willie? What do you makes him tick deep down?
Marijuana. [laughs]
There must be a bit more than that.
He told me, and I don’t disagree with him, that had we not smoked pot during our life then we would probably be dead from drinking whiskey or smoking Camels. It’s debatable. And there’s a lot of reasons they don’t want you to smoke it. The people who make the valium, they don’t want you smoking something you can grow in your fucking garden, and the whiskey people don’t want you doing something you can do without using their brand. And, hell, there’s the timber people and the oil people, they’re all against for their own selfish reasons.
You’ve both lived pretty full energetic lives, and you’re both doing pretty well.
Well, we’ve done pretty well, but the main thing, and staying with the subject, is that we’re both healthy. That’s in contrast to what they say about people who indulge.
Is it easy to know what Willie’s thinking, as his friend?
I think we probably think a lot the same way when it comes to the music. You know, we both look for the unusual. Something in the song that makes it remarkable. There’s a million songs we could have recorded, and to bring it down to the fourteen that we did, it takes a bit of genius I think, to accomplish such a thing. Willie and I work good together I think when it comes to picking material. There’s some really good songs on that album. There’s ones that don’t appear to be really good at first, and then you listen to them the second and third time and you say, ‘Well, that’s a great song’. “Driving The Herd’ right now is my favorite song—I’ve been listening to the album, and that’s something I don’t do after making an album. I don’t listen to them anymore. But I’ve been listening to this one.
It seems to be doing well.
We knew our audience is out there and right now it’s just a matter of letting them know about it. They don’t give us airplay. This album sold 58,000 records, something like that, in the first two weeks and it was all by word of mouth. It’s hard to sell records anymore, you know. Records are really a thing of the past.
Do you think the two of you will do another album together?
Probably not. We probably won’t live that long.
