DISGRACELAND - Merle Haggard (Pt. 2): Surviving Christmas, Cosmic American Aliens, and Cocaine Clarity

Episode Date: December 2, 2025

A cosmic-country dust-up with Gram Parsons. A months-long cocaine spiral. An alien obsession, and a bleak Christmas single that wouldn’t quit. Death threats, pistols, pardons, and “Pancho & Lefty.” Listen to find out how Merle Haggard survived another December and lived to rewrite country music. For the full list of contributors, visit ⁠⁠disgracelandpod.com⁠⁠ To listen to Disgraceland ad free and get access to exclusive content and more, become a Disgraceland All Access member at ⁠⁠disgracelandpod.com/membership⁠⁠. Sign up for our newsletter and get the inside dirt on events, merch and other awesomeness - ⁠⁠GET THE NEWSLETTER⁠⁠ Follow Jake and DISGRACELAND: ⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠ ⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠ ⁠⁠X⁠⁠ (formerly Twitter)  ⁠⁠Facebook Fan Group⁠⁠ ⁠⁠TikTok⁠ To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is exactly right. Double Elvis. When a group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist, they take matters into their own hands. I vowed, I will be his last target. He is not going to get away with this. He's going to get what he deserves. We always say that trust your girlfriends. Listen to the girlfriends.

Trust me, babe. On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This season on Dear Chelsea with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic guests like Amelia Clark. When like young people come up to me and they want to be an actor or whatever. My first thing is always, can you think of anything else that you can do? Rather be disappointed in. Do that.

David O'Yellowo. I love this podcast, whether it's therapy or relationships or religion or sex or addiction or you just go straight for the guts. Dennis Leary, Gaten Matarazzo from Stranger Things, Tana Monsu, Camilla Morone, Carrie Kenny Silver, and more. Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Sometimes a suspect is found guilty before a verdict is ever read in court. On the Wicked Words podcast, I talk with the writers who dig deep into the cases that changed history,

including Marsha Clark, who went from prosecuting one of the most famous murder cases to writing crime fiction. It doesn't matter that you didn't take part in the murder. If you were at the scene at all, you're guilty of murder. Every week, the real story is revealed. Join us every Monday for new episodes of Wicked Words. Listen to Wicked Words on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. This is a story about survival. It's about a branded man with a guitar in one hand and a piece. pistol in the other. About a joke that was taken seriously and a country poet whose sense of humor was taken the wrong way. A story about death threats and unexpected pardons. And it's also a story about losers, about houseboats and hedonism, cocaine and come to Jesus clarity. It's about wanting a girl named Dolly and needing a guy named Willie and about a friend who didn't make it through the night. This is a story about Merle Haggard.

So, of course, it's about great music. Some of the greatest, most authentic country music of all time. Unlike that clip I played for you at the top of the show, that wasn't great music. That was a preset loop from a Melotron called Love Boat Blues, MK, 2. I played you that loop because I can't afford the rights to Midnight Train to Georgia by Gladys Knight and the Pips. And why would I play you that specific slice of that nitty-gritty red-eyed cheese, could I afford it?

Because that was the number one song in America on October 27, 1973. And that was the day that Merle Haggard released If We Make It Through December, an unorthodox Christmas song on an otherwise unorthodox Christmas album, a song that would become his 16th single, The Climb to the... top of the country charts, and a song whose bleak outlook would soon come dangerously close to mirroring Merle's own life. On this, a special two-part episode, cocaine, pistols, death threats, houseboats, hedonism, and Merle Haggard.

I'm Jake Brennan, and this is Disgraceland. Graham Parsons is a pussy. He paced angrily around his room at the Los Angeles Holiday. holiday in. His dark sunglasses barely masking the rage that was burning behind them. He was pissed that this kid, this flying burrito bird or whatever the hell he was, this Graham Parsons was too drunk to meet and finalize the paperwork for Merle to produce his debut solo album. But he was equally upset at himself. He'd been had, duped into thinking that the kid was the real deal, an authentic country star in the making. And furthermore, the idea that through some kind of musical

Meryl taking Graham under his wing and all that, that somehow Merle could bridge the gap between his own traditional country audience and the long hairs. But Graham was green, and Graham couldn't hold his liquor. Graham, in Merle's eyes, was not a serious person. And Merle Haggard took this shit very seriously. Sure, bottoms up, smoke them if you got them, but you got to be able to tie one on and still make the meeting on time. There would be no Graham Parsons record produced, but...

by Merle Haggard. And you can be sure that as soon as word reached Graham over in his room at the Roosevelt Hotel, Merle's ears would start burning as that 20-something cosmic cowboy called 35-year-old Merle every name under the sun. A lot of people have called Merle Haggard a lot of things. Bob Dylan once said that Merle was Shakespeare in cowboy boots. Chris Christopherson called him the poet of the common man. And Merle himself said he was the guy who stood up for the people who didn't have

the nerve to stand up for themselves, the losers, as he put it. And when it came to losers, it took one to no one. Merle had done the loser thing when he was younger. He'd even done hard time at San Quentin. So a year or so, after the snuffoo with Grand Parsons in 1973, when Merle set out to write a song for a new Christmas album, Merle wasn't thinking about sugarplums and chestnuts roasting on an open fire. Instead, he chose to write about a loser, a guy who'd been laid off around the holidays and couldn't afford to provide for his family during what was supposed to be the happiest month of the year. If we make it through December, it became Merle's 16th number one country single in just seven years' time, because Merle Haggard was no longer the losing kind,

at least not when it came to the Billboard country charts, just like he was no longer an outlaw, thanks to future United States president and current governor of California, Ronald Reagan, who had issued Merle a full pardon for the crimes of his youth. But although Reagan had wiped his slate clean, Merle Haggard was still a branded man, because Merle Haggard found himself squarely in the crosshairs of the American counterculture, the young folks of the new generation who, at the dawn of the 1970s, were equating Merle's Bakersfield sound with the sound of authority and conformity,

thanks to one of those number one singles of his, the song, Oki from Muskogee. Oki from Muskogee is one of the most notorious entries in the, Ails of country music. In it, Merle sings about how they don't smoke marijuana in the Skoggi or take trips on LSD, that the men keep their hair short and salute the flag and respect authority. Keep in mind, this was released in 1969, one month after Woodstock. It was embraced by the conservative old guard who kept it at the top of the country chart for four straight weeks. But to the so-called hippies, it sounded like the first shot across the bow. The ironic thing here is that I think Merle wrote the song as a joke.

But just because Merle wrote it and sang it doesn't mean that Merle agreed 100% with the sentiments therein. I mean, this is songwriting 101, but if he's joking, that didn't stop the hippies that the song seemed to vilify from coming after Merle.

A horde of them tried to topple his tour bus while he and his family were inside and they wanted to kill him. And there were death threats, even deep in country music country. Merle Haggard was living that branded man life that he sang about every night. Murrow walked on stage, his butterscotch telecaster hanging from his shoulder and a cigarette

burning between his fingers. The thunderous applause from the crowd didn't make him feel completely safe. Not here. Not in the great state of Texas. Not even with his band, the strangers, standing up there with him. His songs had made him a lightning rod. And now he feared he could be struck down at any time. He smiled.

waved to the crowd, and then turned to look directly behind him. There, just as he'd asked, someone from the rogue crew had placed his tall stool, which had his name engraved on the back, and on top of the stool, also, as requested, was his loaded pistol. Seeing the gun calmed him a bit. Seeing the gun clawed back at that feeling he got at times like these, a feeling that he was back in San Quentin, damp floor, rusted steel, the walls closing in. It made him feel like he could keep the crazies at bay. But whether it was some hate Ashbury loon who wanted his head on a stick

or on the flip side, the segregationist presidential candidate George Wallace or the Grand Wizard of the fucking KKK David Duke who were gravely mistaken when they came calling, thinking that Merle was a friend. All of these people had profoundly misinterpreted Oki from Muskochi. Just like his buddy Ronald Reagan would misinterpret born in the USA about a decade later. but I digress.

Knowing that the pistol was safely laying there on the stool, hidden in the shadows, Merle was able to pull it together. The fear melted away. He turned to face the audience and took a step forward to the microphone and said, OK, whoever sent me the death threat, come on. And then he motioned to the strangers,

counted off the intro, and launched into his 1968 hit, Mama tried. It was very likely that, that Mama Tried was also being performed that very same night somewhere in the U.S. or the UK by the Grateful Dead, who had been including it in their live sets for years. The dead's Bob Weir was one of the few in the counterculture to get the joke. To know that Merle's true intent with Oki from Muskochi was not to draw a line in the sand, but to simply poke fun at the divide.

Ditto the Green Graham Parsons, who would get the birds to cover Merle's life in prison on their excellent 1968 album, Sweetheart of the Rodeo. But this was late 1973, which meant that Graham Parsons, who never got to make a record with this hero, was dead. And Murrell, with, if we make it through December, now creeping into the top third of the Billboard Hot 100, was pushing past all that Oki paranoia

and cementing his reputation as country music's Shakespeare. It was a reputation that wasn't so easily won. First, Merle Haggard had to navigate his way through multiple divorces, potential financial ruin, and a whirlwind romance with drugs that would make one of them in the Skogi boys blush. Merle Haggard had to stop himself and become just another loser. There's two golden rules that any man should live by. Rule one, never mess with a country girl. You play stupid games, you get stupid prizes.

And rule two, never mess with her friends. either. We always say that trust your girlfriends. I'm Anna Sinfield and in this new season of the girlfriends Oh my God, this is the same man. A group of women discover they've all dated the same

prolific con artist. I felt like I got hit by a truck. I thought how could this happen to me? The cops didn't seem to care. So they take matters into their own hands. I said, oh hell no. I vowed. I will be his last target. He's going to get what he deserves.

Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe. On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. This season on Dear Chelsea, with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic guests like Amelia Clark. When, like, young people come up to me and they want to be an actor or whatever.

My first thing is always, can you think of anything else that you can do? Rather be disappointed in. Do that. Dennis Leary. I wake up and I'm hitting him. in the head with a water bomb. And Bruce Jenner is on the aisle

in a karate stance, like he's about to attack me, like, making karate noises. And his entire, the Kardashian family over there, everybody's going, and the air marshal is trying to grab my arms and screaming. And I immediately know that I've been

in sleepwalk. David O'Yello I love this podcast, whether it's therapy or relationships or religion or sex or addiction or you just go straight for the guts. Guy Branham. So anyway, Nicole Kidman broke up with Keith Thurban. Being half of a country couple was always a hat she was going to wear, not like a life she was going to lead. Oh, interesting.

I like that. Did you practice that on your way over? Gaten Matarazzo from Stranger Things. Santa Muju. Camilla Morone, Carrie Kenny Silver, and more. Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Remember when you'd walk into your local video rental place and there were always those two employees behind the counter arguing about movies? Well, that's us. I'm Millie de Cherico. And I'm Casey O'Brien. And now we're arguing about movies on our podcast. Dear Movies I Love You from the Exactly Right Network. Can I say something about the criterion closet? Go ahead, dude. They're letting too many people in there. Okay. That's another film grape I got two.

Sadly, that rental place doesn't exist anymore. It's probably a store that's a store that's sells running shoes. Or an ice cream shop with an extra pee and an E at the end. So consider us your slacker movie clerks in podcast form. I would like to establish a timeline of the moment you figured out who Channing Tatum was. Every Tuesday, we dig into the movies we can't stop obsessing over, from hidden gems to big screen favorites. New episodes drop every week on the exactly right network. Listen to Dear Movies I Love You on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or or wherever you get your podcasts.

Freddie Powers merged from his houseboat with a can of beer in his hand and his old poodle grandma by his side. She had to grow into that name over the years and only now, toothless, half blind, and with a tongue that hung out of the side of her mouth, did grandma truly fit her. Just like Lake Shasta here in Northern California

now truly fit Freddie. Shasta was not Reno. Reno was Pennhouse Suites and playing in the house band of the casino, knocking back Cuddy Sark with wise guys like Frank Lefty Rosenthal and Tony the Ant Spilatro. Reno was T&A 24-7. Here on the lake in Northern California,

life for Freddie Powers was pretty much the same as it happened in the city. Now, however, he had vistas and horizons to look at, not to mention that big, beautiful sky painted by the big man upstairs night after night. On this particular evening, the sun set in dramatic fashion, streaks of red and orange that he couldn't help but look at all dumbfounded like, just as grandma's drooling face was looking at it now. But just because he was no longer in the biggest little city in the world, didn't mean that Freddie didn't party any longer.

On the contrary, it was then that he heard the familiar sound of women, laughing, giggling, teething, accompanied by their excitable footsteps coming down the dock. It was Wednesday night. And like every Wednesday night, once the nearby nightclub shut down, the crowd made their way here to the three-story houseboat docked right next to freddies the houseboat that belonged to none other than his songwriting partner merle haggard and it was on that boat that merle and freddy hosted lake shasta's most popular weekly event the wet t-shirt contest it was 1981 the same year that

Merle Haggard, at 44 years old, began smoking weed on his doctor's recommendation, even though a lyric from one of his new songs that year longed for a time when, quote, a joint was just a bad place to be, unquote. But Merle the man, not Merle the guy in the song, was riding high. And I'm talking about more than the stuff they turned their noses up at in Muskogee. Merle was also riding high on the kind of music career that most could only dream of. He just scored his 27th number one country single in 15 years with the title track to his most excellent album, Big City.

The record was produced by his good friend Louis Talley, one of the first to take a chance on Merle way back when he was nothing but an ex-con with a guitar and a launching list of offenses. These days, Lewis wasn't just Merle's producer and close confidant. He was the guy in charge of spraying the chess of young women with water every Wednesday night on Merle's housebook. Merle had moved up north from Bakersfield to a ranch house at nearby Reading a few years prior. But these days he spent most of his time living on the lake.

He'd invested some of that country music money in the Silverthorn Resort, a marina there on Lake Shasta that had been a bait shop, a restaurant, and a nightclub. They said it was a risky financial move. But then, Merle had been taken risks ever since the first time he hopped a train bound for nowhere back when he was just a kid. Everything he did was a risk. Like that one time when he walked in Haraz in Reno, and immediately lost over a hundred grand gambling,

while Freddy's old friend's Tony the Ant and Lefty Rosenthal sucked down Paul Mall somewhere in the shadows. But when he went on on tour with Dolly Parton back in 1974. I mean, have you seen any photos of Dolly Parton in 1974? She was Marilyn Monroe with a guitar, to quote Merle. He knew the risk he was taking when he asked her to tour with him. He knew better. Just one year earlier, he was working on a song about Dolly called Always Wanting You. He finished writing it at three in the morning

and then called her right then. Woke Dolly up. Woke up Dolly's husband too, while Merle's own wife, Bonnie, was sleeping next to Merle in their bed so that Merle could sing the song he just wrote for Dolly over the phone. A song called Always Wanting You.

Merle Haggard, just shooting his shot in the middle of the night, like he and Dolly were the only two people in the world. So you won't be surprised to learn that Merle pursued Dolly so much. that she eventually left the tour early. Nor will you be surprised to know that it wasn't long before Bonnie,

who was Merle's second wife, left him and took the kids, the ones from his first marriage, the ones that Bonnie helped to take care of. However, you might be surprised to learn that Bonnie was then a bridesmaid in Merle's next marriage. His third to a woman named Leona, his second Leona, that is.

I know, this is super confusing. And look, As much as I'm curious how that conversation went down, like, Hey, honey, you know who should be in our wedding party? The woman I just divorced. The fact of the matter is, we just don't have time to get into all that here. Suffice it to say that Merle Haggard had an eye that wandered about as far and wide as his tour bus wandered to the lonesome highways of America.

Back on Lake Shasta, that roving eye didn't have far to wander. Just the distance from the Silverthorns Nightclub back to Merle's houseboat. which at 18 feet wide was three feet wider than was legally allowed on the lake and which boasted a lover's lair down in the bottom deck, which is where Merle and Freddie had given a private tour to some of those wet T-shirt winners throughout the years. And Merle Haggard led a completely hedonistic lifestyle on Lake Shasta, a lifestyle of weed smoking, beer drinking, and routine philandering,

while simultaneously cashing in on a meat and potatoes rule following, above-board American male image that made him more money than any table or slot handle ever had in Reno. But it wasn't all winning hands. All these soaking wet women running around his and Freddy's houseboats were now posing a similar threat to Merle's domestic bliss as Dolly Parton once had. And so, it wasn't long before Merle's third marriage ended. Leona No. 2 left, and she hired the notorious lawyer, Melvin Belly, one-time attorney for Mickey Cohen and Jack Ruby, who was able to get her alimony before the ink was even dry on their divorce papers. So in 1983, Muriel was coughing up $25,000 a month to Leona.

This, on top of whatever alimony he was already paying to his first two wives. And then, Bonnie, his second wife, announced that she was getting remarried. And for some reason, that new piece of information just hit Merle like a knife twisted deep into his gut. Merle sat in his houseboat, the clouds gathering outside, and the rain just... starting to pitter-patter on the boat's roof. He'd lost Leona, Bonnie, and Dolly. And he was losing money like water down a wide drain. He was beginning to wonder if his Christmas song, if we make it through December, had suddenly and unexpectedly become relevant to his personal life. Losing money, losing women, losing face, these were all familiar pains. Pains he once thought

he wouldn't have to experience again. But here he was, just plainly. losing and losing sucked. He needed somehow to dull the hurt, the regret, the wacky tobacco he was so fond of these days wasn't gonna do the trick, not even close. So Merle Haggard withdrew $2,000 from his bank account and got himself as much cocaine as that amount of money to buy and then he found one of those able and willing Lake Shasta girls and took her down below sea level on his houseboat and didn't come up for air for the next five months. We'll be right back after this world,

word, word. There's two golden rules that any man should live by. Rule one, never mess with a country girl. You play stupid games, you get stupid prizes. And rule two, never mess with her friends either. We always say that trust your girlfriends. I'm Anna Sinfield, and in this new season

of the girlfriends, oh my God, this is the same man. A group of women, they've all dated the same prolific con artist. I felt like I got hit by a truck. I thought, how could this happen to me? The cops didn't seem to care. So they take matters into their own hands. I said, oh, hell no.

I vowed. I will be his last target. He's going to get what he deserves. Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe. On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. This season on Dear Chelsea with me,

Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic guests like Amelia Clark. When like young people come up to me and they want to be an act or whatever, my first thing is always, can you think of anything else that you can do? Rather be disappointed in. Do that. Dennis Leary. I wake up and I'm hitting him in the head with a water bomb. And Bruce Jenner is on the aisle in a karate stance like he's about to attack me.

Like making karate noises. And here's the entire the Kardashian family over there, everybody's going, and the air marshal is trying to grab my arms and screaming. I immediately know that I've been asleep walking. David O'Yelloo. I love this podcast, whether it's therapy or relationships or religion or sex or addiction or you just go straight for the guts. Guy Branham. So anyway, Nicole Kidman broke up with Keith Thurban.

Being half of a country couple was always a hat she was going to wear. not like a life she was going to lead. Oh, interesting. I like that. Did you practice that on your way over? Gaten Matarazzo from Stranger Things. Tena Monsu. Camilla Marone, Carrie Kenny Silver, and more.

Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, host of the Wicked Words podcast. Each week I sit down with the true crime writers behind some of the most comprehensive. compelling true crime stories and discuss their years spent investigating and why it still matters.

He sees his father coming out of the woods with his hands over his face, and he knows something happened. His father just grabs him and says, she's gone, she's gone. These are the cases that leave survivors, families, and the journalists who cover them changed forever. Working in national television, it'll push you to your limits, and you'll end up doing things. you never thought you do. You know, you look back at it and you're like, I can't believe that really happened. Join me and step inside the investigation.

New episodes drop every Monday on the Exactly Right Network. Listen to Wicked Words on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The white powder that lay at the feet of Merle Haggard was Machu Picchu. It was Kilimanjaro. It was a mountain of dust that had to be conquered, step by step, hour by hour, day by day. This was a challenge.

It spoke to Merle, taunting him. You man enough to make this all disappear, just like your money, just like your wives. Muriel Haggard accepted that challenge. He was up to his eyeballs and cocaine. The Lake Shasta chick, keeping him company down here in the lover's lair area of his oversized houseboat, rolled over in the bed, he grabbed the rolled-up dollar bill and did another line.

She threw her head back. Her wide, bloodshot eyes meeting Merle's. They laughed and swayed to the sounds coming from the cassette deck. Lefty Frasel, Hank Williams, Bob Wills, and Willie Nelson, and Johnny Cash. It was Johnny who once sang, Let the Cocaine Be. But you know what? Fuck off Johnny Cash. The stuff worked for Waylon.

Besides, Cash had a head full of amphetamines around the clock, so what did he know about it? Merle didn't want to know nothing. He didn't want to contemplate the world or his place in it. If an alien reached down from the sky above and tried to make contact, he wouldn't even notice. Not right now. He just wanted to snort and fuck his way into oblivion. He heard screams of ecstasy coming from Freddy's boat docked next door

and figured his good friend was doing the same. But Merle set the pace. Everyone else just locked in with him. As the sound of a fiddle and then a pedal steel came crying from the stereo, speakers. Murrow got a finger full of blow on his digit and rubbed it all over his gums, pulled back the sheets and jumped into bed. The Lake Shasta girl was writhing around, talking that dirty talking his ear. He closed his eyes and thought of Dolly Parton, thought of her breath, hot and sweet, and the bandana and her buoyant blonde hair, the big hoop earrings, the denim shirt, the smile that

lay waste to his weak heart. And then everything went. Black. A few months earlier in the fall of 1982, Merle Haggard was passed out on his tour bus, which was parked right outside Willie Nelson's recording studio in Peternalus, Texas. He was sleeping like a dead man, and he felt like one, too. Merle and Willie have been up for five days and five nights, chasing weed and booze with shots of maple syrup, lemon juice, and cayenne pepper. Some yin and yang, like the good would balance out the bad, or so on the thing. Merle and Willie were working on a new album together with the legendary producer Chip's Moment, best known for his work with Elvis Presley, Tammy Winnet, and Bobby Womack.

Now, Merle was no stranger to the charts, but he wanted some of that Willie and Chips juice, the kind that it recently sent Willie's cover of Always On My Mind, not just to number one on the country chart, but to number five on the mainstream Billboard Top 100. So Merle and Willie got down to business, recording a bunch of my mind. bunch of each other's songs. They did Merle's reason to quit and Willie's half a man and opportunity to cry among others. But as strong as the material was, Chips didn't hear a hit along the lines of always on my mind, which at this point, after being up for five days straight, Merle didn't think he could point out a hit song in a police lineup. Thus, he found himself snoring

away what was left at the night on the bed inside his big bus. At four in the morning, he woke to a loud banging on the bus's door, and then more banging, just this incessant knocking that would not quit. Jesus, Merle thought, as he peeled his face away from his pillow, his head pounding, and the taste of cayenne still burning in the back of his throat. It was waking him up at this hour. He stumbled to the door and threw it open in dramatic fashion, and there was Willie, smiling, stoned, holding a brown paper bag in his hand.

on the bag where scribbled the lyrics to a song by another Texas songwriter named Towns Van Zan a song called Pancho and Lefty it was Willie's daughter who had brought the tune to his attention through an emil lew harris album of all things god damn merle this isn't the perfect song for the two of us to sing i don't know what is merle rubbed his eyes that's what this was about a song Merle just nodded his head. His eyes half closed. Told Willie he'd see him later and began to shut the door. Willie put his hand up and stopped the door from closing all the way.

You don't understand, Willie said. Chips, the band, everybody. They're all set up in the studio waiting for us. We're doing this now, Merle. The next day. As Merle and Willie played a round of golf on Willie's course, Merle couldn't get Pancho and Lefty out of his head. The song was incredible.

But the thing was, he had no memory of recording it that previous morning, even though Willie said they had. In fact, Willie said they did it in one take. What fucked up was he? And how fucked up did he sound on the track? He asked Willie to head back to the studio and take one more pass at it. Not possible, Willie responded. Epic Records already hasn't. Then they love it.

When it was released in January, 1983, Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson's album, Poncho and Lefty, was hailed by the press as a career highlight for both artists. It reached number one on the country albums chart and even cracked the top 40 of the pop chart. On the title track, especially, Merle Haggard sounded like Peek Merle Haggard, which is to say, warm, weathered, and laid back, even though Merle couldn't remember singing a word.

But Peak Merle Haggard, the authentic Merle Haggard, that guy soon became bizarro Merle Haggard. And it happened as now. 1983 dragged on, and he found himself holed up on his houseboat for months on end, making his way through what felt like a bottomless pile of cocaine. For all of his life, Merle felt most at home on the open road. He had to keep moving, going from one town to another, watching America pass him by. He reminded him of his childhood, hopping trains, which, despite as many run-ins with the law,

was a simpler time, a time of absolute freedom. The opposite of freedom was being stuck in one house, one room, the same four walls and roof all conspiring to close in on you, suffocate you, and kill you slowly. That wasn't living, somewhere. So down here in his lover's lair, hidden from the natural beauty of Lake Shasta outside, hidden from his family, his exes. The Merle was slowly dying the death of a man deprived of that freedom. One day passed and then another.

And soon, Murl realized he'd spent five days straight at doing cocaine nonstop with a young, hot, naked woman at his side the entire time and they hadn't had sex once. Was it Whalen who said this shit would turn his crank? Merle's crank wasn't just not turning. It was broken. It took until the Coke ran out for Merle to have this epiphany. But when he did, everything was so clear to drugs. Fuck feeling sorry for yourself, hidden away in a hole.

After five months, Merle Haggard walked up the steps to the main deck of his houseboat and out into the California sunshine and started winning again. Hey guys, earlier in this episode, I made this tossed-off comment about how Merle was so focused on getting wasted that he would even ignore attempted contact by aliens. Well, here's the thing. That wasn't exactly just a tossed-off comment, because not only did Merle Hagg believe in the existence of aliens, he had his own story about an alien encounter. And I want to tell you this story, and I will. But to hear it, you got to be a member of Disgrace and All Access.

Just go to disgraceandpod.com to sign up and hear the rest of that one. All right, now back to our Merle Haggard episode. In the winter of 1985, two years after Merle Haggard swore off cocaine for the first time, Lewis Talley, Merle's old friend, producer, press officer, an official t-shirt Soaker in those notorious Wednesday night contests led a woman from the Silverthorn Bar in Lake Shasta over to Merle's boat. Murrell was out of town preparing to launch another tour and he had graciously allowed Lewis to use his boat in his absence because as you now well know if you're going to do something that you don't want your husband or wife to know about you do it in the privacy of Merle Haggert's 18 foot boat which is exactly the sort of thing Lewis had in mind on this night.

He led the woman below deck. And then, while she was making herself a little more comfortable, Lewis poured the remaining contents of one of Merle's bottles of Smyranoff into some glasses. Next, he pulled a $10 bill from his pocket and attached it to the side of the empty bottle with a rubber band. Lewis didn't take advantage of his friends, and he repaid his debts. And then he walked toward the bed and got busy doing the things he came here to do. Only, he didn't finish what he started. because at some point in the evening during this clandestine colonel rendezvous down in Merle Haggard's lover's lair on Merle haggard's houseboat,

Lewis Talley had a heart attack and died. By the time anyone found his body and found the empty bottle of Smearnoff with a ten spot stuck to it, the woman, whoever she was, was long gone. Merle was devastated. One of the last things Lewis had shared with Merle was attuned by the great country songwriter Blaise Foley called, if I could only fly. Lewis told him, Merle,

if this ain't the best damn song I've heard in about 15 years. So Merle played it at Lewis's funeral. And then again on the TV show Nashville now the following year. And then 14 years later in the year 2000, when it became the title track of Merle's 50th album,

one of the best reviewed albums of his entire career, released when Merle was a clean and sober 63 years old. It wasn't one of Merle's song. but it sounded like one. It had that deceptive simplicity to it, as well as that existential longing found in so many of his own songs, just like his Christmas song for the ages, if we make it through December. But Merle knew that particular tune wasn't really about Christmas.

It was about endurance. It was about the busted, the broke, the branded, the outlawed. It was about anyone who had ever felt left behind. And that's why Merle-Murham mattered. Not because he made it through many more December's, including the one where he put all the blow and booze behind him for real this time, but because he gave the rest of us losers reason to believe that we could too. To listen to if we make it through December is to be reminded that life is sometimes just a string of bad months strung together with hope. Survival itself, that's the holiday miracle. And though Merle Haggard was no saint, and he certainly was no angel, Not on that houseboat, not with that bottle, and certainly not while high on cocaine.

He lived long enough to sing his way through one December after another. Until at last, the longing he felt in that Blaze Foley tune could be felt no more. Until another loser outlaw was recast as a legend, free from all disgrace. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is Disgraceland. All right, thanks for riding with me and Merle on his house. houseboat in this episode. Question of the week. Simple one. Who is your favorite country singer of all time? Man, tough to top Merle. George Jones, Johnny Cash, who we talking about? As far as, it doesn't be songwriter, just your favorite, the guy kind of gets in there with his voice and just really

makes you feel everything. 617 90666-6638 voicemail and text to get me your answers. And you might hear yourself on the after party bonus episode coming up right after this. Guys, if you want more stories for music history, more crime, grime, the dirty details that don't make the algorithm or the biopics, become an all-access member of Disgraceland on Patreon or Apple Podcasts, and get bonus and exclusive content along with ad-free listening and access to me and your fellow discos in the Patreon community chat. Go to www.discuracelanpod.com to sign up. All right, here comes some credits. Discraceland was created by yours truly and is produced in partnership with double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be found on the show notes.

page at disgracelandpod.com. If you're listening as a Disgraceland All-Axist member, thank you for supporting the show. We really appreciate it. And if not, you can become a member right now by going to disgracelandpod.com. Rate and review the show and follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and Facebook at Disgraceland

Pod, and on YouTube at YouTube.com slash at Disgraceland Pod. Rockerola. When a group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist. They take matters into their own hands.

I vowed. I will be his last target. He is not going to get away with this. He's going to get what he deserves. We always say that trust your girlfriends. Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe. On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

This season on Dear Chelsea, with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic guests like Amelia Clark. When, like, young people come up to me and they want to be an actor or whatever. And my first thing is always, can you think of anything else that you can do? You'd rather be disappointed in. Do that. David O'Yelloo. I love this podcast, whether it's therapy or relationships or religion or sex or addiction or you just go straight for the guts.

Dennis Leary, Gait and Moderato from Stranger Things. Tena Monsu. Camilla Morone. Carrie Kenny Silver. and more. Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Movies can make you feel, make you dream. Sometimes they even make you appreciate architecture. Is there anybody who's been hotter in a doorway than Elizabeth Taylor? That's the kind of analysis you'll find every week on Dear Movies I Love You, the new podcast from the Exactly Right Network.

Every Tuesday, we break down the films we're crushing on, from blockbusters to deep cuts. Listen to Dear Movies I Love You on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.