Hag: The Best Of Merle Haggard is a single disc career spanning anthology featuring 26 tracks from the country legend, released September 12, 2006.

Ricardo Mio, an amazon.com reviewer says: Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary defines “integrity” as: “State or quality of being complete, undivided, or unbroken.” To me, that sums up Merle Haggard, that and the bed-rock honesty that defined his songs. Yes, he did some things he shouldn’t have, broke some laws, did time in prison, but he emerged humbled but unbroken, his humanity and integrity intact. Whenever I see Haggard perform on video, or hear one his songs on the radio, I hear a man of intelligence, wit, and integrity. He’s passed on to a better place, but the integrity that shown in his music lives on: “Workin’ Man Blues,” “I Take A Lot of Pride in What I Am,” “The Bottle Let Me Down,” “Silver Wings,” “Sing Me Back Home,” “Mama Tried” and so many more, as heard on this treasure of a CD. Merle Haggard, wherever you are, well done. Your music will inspires us always.

Track Listings

Disc: 1
1. The Bottle Let Me Down
2. Branded Man
3. Sing Me Back Home
4. The Legend Of Bonnie And Clyde
5. Today I Started Loving You Again
6. Mama Tried
7. I’m Bringing Home Good News
8. I Take A Lot Of Pride In What I Am
9. Hungry Eyes
10. Workin’ Man Blues
11. Silver Wings
12. Okie From Muskogee
13. The Fightin’ Side Of Me
14. Someday We’ll Look Back
15. If We Make It Through December
16. Things Aren’t Funny Anymore
17. Honky Tonk Night Time Man
18. Old Man From The Mountain
19. Living With The Shades Pulled Down
20. I Think I’ll Just Stay Here And Drink
21. Big City
22. Pancho And Lefty – with Willie Nelson
23. I’m Leaving Now – with Johnny Cash
24. Runaway Mama
25. That’s The News
26. She Ain’t Hooked On Me No More – with Toby Keith

Now how was I supposed to pick just one? I went with “Living with the Shades Pulled Down,” which was the B-side to “It’s All in the Movies’, recorded by American country music artist Merle Haggard and The Strangers, released in September 1975 as the first single and title track from the album It’s All in the Movies.

The Strangers:
Roy Nichols – lead guitar
Norman Hamlet – steel guitar, dobro
Tiny Moore – mandolin
Eldon Shamblin– guitar
Ronnie Reno – guitar
Mark Yeary – piano
James Tittle – bass
Biff Adam – drums
Don Markham – saxophone

I fell in love with a working girl, Lord she sure was sweet
I met her down in the Red Light Tavern working on Bourbon Street
Way down in the old French quarter’s, bright-light side of town
Daytime life sure is cozy living with the shades pulled down

Living with the shades pulled down all day
Loving while the world goes around
Nobody knows what-all we’re doing
Living with the shades pulled down, right and tidy

Some might get the wrong idea ’bout the kind of man I am
But I bring home my half of that bacon pickin’ in a guitar band
Love is all my working girl brings me comin’ in off the town
Daytime life sure gets cozy living with the shades pulled down

Living with the shades pulled down all day
Loving while the world goes around
Nobody knows what all we’re doing
Living with the shades pulled down, and here’s that horn man!

Guitar!

Living with the shades pulled down all day
Loving while the world goes around
Nobody knows what all we’re doing
Living with the shades pulled down

Living with the shades pulled down all day
Loving while the world goes around
Nobody knows what all we’re doing
Living with the shades pulled down

Songwriters: Merle Haggard / Felice Bryant / Boudleaux Bryant