Merle Haggard On Hopping Trains And Doing Time

Summary

Fresh Air – Merle Haggard On Hopping Trains And Doing Time

Date of Release: April 25, 2025
Hosted by: Terry Gross and Tonya Mosley
Produced by: NPR

---

Introduction

In this compelling episode of Fresh Air, hosted by Terry Gross, country music icon Merle Haggard opens up about his tumultuous early life, his lifelong fascination with trains, experiences hopping freight trains, and his time incarcerated. The conversation delves deep into how these formative experiences shaped his music and personal transformation, offering listeners an intimate glimpse into the life of a man who became a cornerstone of country music.

---

Early Life and Fascination with Trains

Merle Haggard's passion for trains was ingrained from a young age. Growing up in Oildale, California, his proximity to the railroad played a significant role in shaping his interests and exploits.

• Sidetracking Memories:
  Merle Haggard (00:54):
  "I lived in an oil community called Oildale. There was a daily steam train that went into the oil fields, pulling out about 40 or 50 oil tankers during the war. It was less than a stone's throw—maybe 150 feet—from my back door to the railroad track."

• Family Influence:
  Haggard (05:25):
  "My dad worked for the Santa Fe Railroad. Railroads were very influential in my life, and I admired the songs that celebrated them, which inspired me to hop freights myself."

---

Hopping Freight Trains

Haggard recounts his adventures hopping freight trains, a practice that was both thrilling and perilous.

• Early Experiences:
  Haggard (05:54):
  "I think the first time I ever jumped on that old oil tanker was probably when I was about five years old. My mother would have died if she had known I'd been up there."

• Learning the Ropes:
  Haggard (05:56):
  "We used to put pennies on the track and hop that old train, ride a block or two, and jump off. It wasn't really all that hard; we learned it young by watching the brakemen and trainmen do it."

• Challenging Journeys:
  Haggard (06:01):
  "One of the worst experiences was riding a freight from Eugene, Oregon, into the Cascades during a snowstorm. The cold was so intense that I dropped my suitcase off the top of the freight and had to gather my clothes in the freezing temperatures."

---

Life Before Music – Struggles and Incarceration

Before finding fame, Haggard's life was marked by instability, rebelliousness, and numerous encounters with the law.

• Childhood Turmoil:
  Haggard (11:01):
  "I was probably the most incorrigible child you could think of. I was already on the way to prison before I realized it."

• Juvenile Detention:
  Haggard (12:34):
  "I escaped from different institutions 17 times. It was a cycle of running off and being recaptured, largely due to the authorities trying to drum up business for themselves."

• Near-escape from San Quentin:
  Haggard (13:35):
  "I was all set to escape San Quentin with a friend, but someone talked me out of it because they saw my talent. That friend ended up being executed, so I'm grateful I didn't go through with it."

• Turning Point:
  Haggard (14:53):
  "While in San Quentin, I had a moment of clarity. I realized the mess I had made of my life and decided to change. I apologized to everyone I had wronged and worked to make amends."

---

Turning Point and Redemption through Music

Music became Haggard's pathway to redemption, offering him a means to express his experiences and emotions.

• First Guitar and Songwriting:
  Haggard (21:03):
  "My first guitar was a little Bronson that sat in the closet for years. My mother showed me a couple of chords, and I started playing songs I heard on the radio."

• Realization of Musical Potential:
  Haggard (20:11):
  "My friends in prison recognized my talent and convinced me to focus on music instead of escapism. They believed I could make something of myself."

• Autobiographical Songwriting:
  Haggard (10:36):
  "The song 'Mama Tried' is very close to my real life—about 97% accurate. It reflects my struggles and my mother's efforts to raise me right."

• First Kept Song:
  Haggard (24:56):
  "The first song I felt was worth keeping was 'If You Want to Be My Woman,' a rock and roll number written when I was about 14."

---

Songwriting and Musical Career

Haggard's dedication to songwriting not only defined his career but also immortalized his personal story.

• Prolific Songwriting:
  Haggard (24:11):
  "I must have written about 1,500 songs that weren't any good before I started writing songs worth keeping."

• Influence of Jimmie Rogers and Hank Williams:
  Haggard (22:17):
  "Discovering Jimmie Rogers and Hank Williams made me realize the importance of writing my own songs. I wanted my name both as a performer and a songwriter."

• Adjusting to Stardom:
  Haggard (28:43):
  "Leaving the penitentiary and suddenly becoming successful was incredibly difficult. It took me about four months to adjust, and there were times I really wanted to go back."

• Music as Redemption:
  Haggard (19:12):
  "I didn't think I had a future in music initially. It was more of a hobby, but my talent was recognized, and it became my path to redemption."

---

Personal Reflections and Legacy

Haggard reflects on his transformation, the support that helped him change, and his lasting impact on music and culture.

• Transformation and Apologies:
  Haggard (15:56):
  "I got out of prison and stayed out by apologizing to everyone I had wronged and paying back the money I owed, including my mother."

• Impact of Music on Personal Life:
  Haggard (19:12):
  "Music gave me a reason to stay on the right path and build something positive out of my life."

• Legacy and Influence:
  Narrator:
  John Caramanica of The New York Times described Haggard as a "country music titan who most resists easy categorization," highlighting his versatility across various musical styles.

---

Conclusion

Merle Haggard's journey from a troubled youth and train-hopping adventurer to a celebrated country music legend is a testament to resilience and the transformative power of art. Through his candid conversation with Terry Gross, listeners gain an intimate understanding of the experiences that fueled his songwriting and shaped his enduring legacy in the annals of American music.

---

Notable Quotes:

• Haggard (05:54):
  "I think probably the first time I ever jumped on that old oil tanker was probably when I was about five years old. My mother would have died if she had known I'd been up there."

• Haggard (10:36):
  "The song 'Mama Tried' is very close to my real life—about 97% accurate."

• Haggard (14:53):
  "While in San Quentin, I had a moment of clarity. I realized the mess I had made of my life and decided to change."

• Haggard (21:03):
  "My first guitar was a little Bronson that sat in the closet for years. My mother showed me a couple of chords, and I started playing songs I heard on the radio."

---

This detailed summary captures the essence of Merle Haggard's interview on Fresh Air, providing listeners with an engaging and comprehensive overview of his life, struggles, and triumphs.

Transcript

[Capella University]

This message comes from Capella University. At Capella, you can earn your degree with support from people who care about your success. A different future is closer than you think with Capella University. Learn more at capella.edu.

[David Bianculli]

This is FRESH AIR. I'm David Biancooli. This week marks the 40th anniversary of FarmAid, the country music concert founded by Willie Nelson as a fundraiser to benefit farmers. Held in Champaign, Illinois, this first gathering featured not only Willie Nelson but such other supportive performers as Bob Dylan, Billy Joel, Bonnie Raitt, Tom Petty, B.B. king, Loretta Lynn and Roy Orbison. Farmers still need aid, and Farm Aid has been staged annually ever since. Stealing the show at that very first Farm aid concert in April 1985 was Merle Haggard singing his then new song, natural Hot.

[Merle Haggard]

You stayed with me through thick dam. You watch me lose, you watch me win.

[Terry Gross]

You pick me up on of the ground.

[Merle Haggard]

You never one time let me down.

[Terry Gross]

And you put me on a natural height.

[Merle Haggard]

I can fly, I could fly, I was drowning.

[David Bianculli]

Today we're going to listen to our 1995 interview with country music star Merle Haggard. John Caramanica in the New York Times once described him as the country music titan who most resists easy categorization. He was a wildly versatile singer, songwriter and performer with an affinity for a variety of styles outlaw country, ballads, the Bakersfield sound, Western swing, jazz and more. Haggard was inducted into the country hall of Fame in 1994 and was awarded the Kennedy Center Honor in 2010. He died in 2016 on his 79th birthday. When Haggard was young, he hardly seemed destined for success. He spent time in and out of reform school and prison before he found his way back to music. Haggard's best known songs include Mama Tried Okie from Muskogee Today, I Started Loving youg Again, and the Bottle Let Me Down. Merle Haggard had a lifelong fascination with trains. After he became a star, he acquired his own railway observation car, and that railway car on which you can book passage is now part of the Virginia Scenic Railway. When Terry spoke with Merle Haggard in 1995, he had reissued an album he recorded in 1969 featuring the songs of Jimmie Rogers. They began with Haggard's recording of the Jimmie Rogers classic Waiting for a Train.

[Merle Haggard]

All around the water tanks. Waiting for a train a thousand miles away from home. Sleeping in the rain. I walked up to a brakeman to give him my talk. He says if you got money, I'll see that you don't walk. I haven't got a nickel, not a penny can I show get off get off your railroad bum. And he slammed that box car door.

[Terry Gross]

Did you hop freights when you were young?

[Merle Haggard]

Yeah, sure did.

[Terry Gross]

Where would you go?

[Merle Haggard]

Well, I lived in an oil community called Oildale. And there was a daily train that went into the oil fields. And it was a steam train back in those days. And I actually grew up every evening, you know, kind of looking forward to seeing that old train pull out of there with about 40 or 50 oil tankers back during the war, you know. And so I was. It was less than a stone well, maybe 150ft from my back door to where the railroad track ran. And I actually grew up right next to it. My dad worked for the Santa Fe Railroad, and he only lived. I was nine when he passed away. But railroads were, you know, very influential in my life. And there was enough of it in the songs that I admired to get me on the freight myself. I thought, well, this is something I gotta do. If they're gonna write songs about it, I gotta go see why. So I did. And I rode freights wherever they took me. I rode them for a block or I'd ride them 200 miles or. I think the longest trip I ever took was from San Antonio to El Paso, I think was the longest one.

[Terry Gross]

Was it hard to learn how to hop a freight?

[Merle Haggard]

No, I learned that probably. I think probably the first time I ever jumped on that old oil tanker was probably. I was about five years old. My mother would have died if she had known I'd been up there. We used to put pennies on the track, you know, and we'd hop that old train, ride a block or two and jump off. So it was something we learned to do young. We'd watch the brakeman and the trainmen do it, you know, it wasn't really all that hard.

[Terry Gross]

What's the worst or the most surprising experience that you had on a freight train?

[Merle Haggard]

The worst? There was a lot of bad experiences. I. I got on a freight in Oregon one time, and it was leaving out of Eugene, and it went up into the. Into the Cascades and into a snowstorm. And I was traveling in the ice compartment, and it. Me and two other oboes was in there, and it got rather cold in that metal. And I remember they stopped up in the mountains and then climbed up out of that ice compartment. And I'm shaking so bad that I dropped my suitcase off the top of the freight and I had to get off for a while and gather up my clothes.

[Terry Gross]

Just sounds awful. Did you have frostbite.

[Merle Haggard]

Somehow? Somebody watched out for me, I didn't get anything like that.

[Terry Gross]

Were there ever traveling musicians on the trains, and did you feel you learned anything about a musician's life?

[Merle Haggard]

I didn't run into any players on the freight, just people traveling, you know, for different reasons. I'm sure I don't know most of them probably for the same reasons. I think they were probably hobos, you know, and, and I remember one time I stole a can of beans out of a refrigerator car and threw it up in the into this flat, into this boxcar where all the rest of the hobos were riding. And boy, they got really upset. They said, oh, we're going to get 50 years in the penitentiary, you know, you must be really green guy, you know. And there was nobody would share that box of green beans except one old man, and he was about 80 years old, and he threw a spoon and a can opener across the boxcar to me. He said, I'll help you eat them, son.

[David Bianculli]

Merle Haggard speaking to Terry Gross in 1995. More after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

[Synchrony Bank]

This message is from Synchrony bank, who wants to remind you to stay flexible, not the yoga bending circus performing kind of flexible, financially flexible, like with their high yield savings account. Stay [e-mail] NPR member FDIC. This message comes from Leesa. Since 2015, Leesa has donated over 41,000 mattresses nationwide. Elevate your sleep with Lisa. Go to Lisa.com for 20% off, plus an extra $50 off with promo code. NPR this message comes from Progressive Insurance and the name your price tool. It helps you find car insurance options in your budget. Try it [e-mail], progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Price and coverage match limited by state law, not available in all states. This message comes from Sony Pictures Classics presenting on Swift Horses, starring Daisy Edgar Jones, Jacob Elordi, Will Poulter and Sasha Callet. Muriel and her husband, Lee, are beginning a bright new life in California when he returns from the Korean War. But their newfound stability is upended by the arrival of Lee's charismatic brother, Julius, a wayward gambler with a secret past, now playing only in theaters. Get tickets [e-mail] this is FRESH AIR.

[David Bianculli]

Let's get back to Terry's 1995 interview with country star Merle Haggard. We'll dive back in with a taste of one of his biggest hits, mama Tried.

[Merle Haggard]

The first thing I remember knowing was a lonesome whistle blowing and a youngin's dream of growing up to ride on a freight Train leaving town not knowing where I'm bound and no one could change my mind But Mama tried the one and only Rebe child From a family meek and mild My mama seemed to know what lay in store Spite of all my Sunday learning towards the bat I kept on turning Till Mama couldn't hold me anymore I turned 21 in prison doing life without parole no one could steer me right But Mama tried, Mama tried Mama tried to raise me better but her fleeting idea Night that leaves only me to blame.

[Terry Gross]

Cause Mama's dried Merle Haggard. Is the song autobiographical?

[Merle Haggard]

Well, it really. It really is very, very close. At least there's some. Some things we fudged on slightly to. To make it rhyme. But the majority of it, I'd say 97% of it's pretty accurate, I guess.

[Terry Gross]

Your father died when you were nine, is that right?

[Merle Haggard]

Nine.

[Terry Gross]

So your mother had to raise you alone after that?

[Merle Haggard]

Yeah. And I was, to say the least, probably. Probably the most incorrigible child you could think of. I was already on the way to prison before I realized it, actually. I was just. I was really kind of a screw up and I really don't know why. I think it was mostly just out of boredom and lack of a father's attention. I think.

[Terry Gross]

I think you were 14 when your mother put you in a juvenile home.

[Merle Haggard]

No, she didn't put me in a juvenile home. The authorities put me in there for truancy, for not going to school. And they gave me six months in a road camp situation and I ran off from there and stole a car. And so then the next time I went back, it was something serious. And then I spent the next seven years running off from places. I think I escaped 17 times from different institutions in California. And all it was was just a matter of the authorities running me off and, you know, they drumming up business for themselves. I really feel sorry for the way they do some of the kids, you know, and I was one of those kids. I'm going to snitch on them if I get a chance.

[Terry Gross]

How would you escape from reform school and youth institutions?

[Merle Haggard]

Well, there was different institutions and different methods. There was. Some of them were minimum security, some of them were maximum security, and some of them were kid joints, and some of them were adult jailhouses. And I just didn't stay nowhere. I was just. I think Willie Sutton was my idol, if you don't know. You know, at the time I was in a. In the middle of becoming an outlaw and escaping from jail and escaping from places that they had me Locked up in was part of the thing that I wanted to do.

[Terry Gross]

Now, was there an outlaw mystique that you wanted to have?

[Merle Haggard]

I guess. I don't know. I admired people like Jesse James along with a lot of other kids. But I guess I took it too far.

[Terry Gross]

So what was your most ingenious escape?

[Merle Haggard]

Probably the one that was the most ingenious was one that I didn't actually go on. I was San Quentin. I was all set to go with the only completely successful escape out of San Quentin, I think, in 21 years. But the people that gave me the chance to go were the same people that talked me out of it. Because they felt like that I was just doing it for the sport of it. And it was a very serious thing to the other fellow that was gone. And they had a big judge's chamber sort of desk that they were building at the furniture factory in San Quentin. And I had a friend who was building a place for two guys to be transported out. That was before they had X rays and things of that nature. They just. And I could have gone, and I didn't go. And the guy that I went with wound up being executed in the gas chamber. He went out and held court in the street, killed a highway patrolman. And so it was really good that I didn't go.

[Terry Gross]

Was that a real sobering experience for you?

[Merle Haggard]

Yeah, I've had a lot of those things in my life. And, you know, those are the sort of things that a guy unknowingly like myself, I guess I was gathering up, meet for songs, you know, I don't know what I was doing. I really kind of was crazy as a kid. And then all of a sudden, you know, while I was in San Quentin, I just. I one day understood that I saw the light and I just didn't want to do that no more. And I realized what a mess I'd made out of my life. And I got out of there and stayed out of there. Never did go back and went and apologized to all the people I'd wronged and tried to pay back. The people that I'd taken money from them, borrowed money from or whatever. I think when I was 31 years old, I paid everybody back that I'd ever taken anything from, including my mother.

[Terry Gross]

What'd you say to your mother when you changed your life around?

[Merle Haggard]

But it was just obvious. I don't think there was ever any time that anybody in my family was worried about me staying with us. It was just the way that some people grow up in the Army. And you know, it's hard to be 18 years old. And you know, they send 18 year old boys to war because they don't know what to do with them. And I was one that I wound up going to prison rather than war. And instead of growing up in the middle of a battlefield with bullets flying around me, I grew up on the isolation ward, death row. And that's for the song Mama Tried. Gets close to being autobiographical.

[Terry Gross]

You were on death row?

[Merle Haggard]

Yeah, I was. I got caught for making beer, making some beer up there, and I got too much of my own beer and got drunk in the yard and got arrested. And it's hard to get arrested in San Quentin, but I did. And they sent me to what was known as the shelf. And the shelf is part of the north block, which you share with the inmates on death row. And it's kind of like the. There's not too many more stops for you, actually, you know, and that was the, as you put it, sobering experience for me. I. I wound up with nothing to. Nothing to lay on except a Bible in an old concrete slab and woke up from that drunk that I'd been on that day. And, and I could hear some prisoners talking in the, in the area next to me. In other words, there was a alleyway between the back of the cells and I could hear people talking over there. And I recognized the guy as being Carol Chessman, a guy that they were fixing to execute. And I don't know, it was just something about the whole situation that I knew that if I ever got out of there, if I was lucky enough to get out, I made up my mind, while I still had that hangover, that I was all finished.

[Terry Gross]

How were you lucky enough to get out?

[Merle Haggard]

Well, I went back down on the yard and went down and asked for the roughest job in the penitentiary, which was a textile mill, and went down and just started building my reputation, you know, just started running in reverse from what I'd been doing and started trying to build up a long line of good things to be proud of. And that's what I've been doing since then.

[Terry Gross]

Back in the days when you were in prison, was music a big part of your life then? Were you singing, playing, writing songs?

[Merle Haggard]

Yeah, yeah, I was already into doing that. I really didn't, I don't think, believe that I sincerely had a future in it. I think I was just kind of like doing what I thought was probably a waste of time or a hobby at the very most, and maybe some extra money on the weekend, sort of thing. But that's, you know, that's when I was in San Quentin. I still didn't really thoroughly realize. That I had to do this the rest of my life. And that it was going to be this successful for me. And I was going to, you know, have all the things happened that have happened. I had no idea that you could never have convinced me Of a minute amount of the success I've had. I would never have believed it.

[Terry Gross]

Did your musical ability have anything to do with people noticing you in prison. And thinking that you could make it when you got out? Did that help you at all in the war?

[Merle Haggard]

That was the basic reason, I think that these friends of mine talked me out of going on that escape. They felt that I had talent. And they felt that I was just an ornery kid. And could probably make something out of my life. And, you know, believe it or not, in the penitentiary. Just some pretty nice people and very unfortunate people. And they love to let somebody, so to speak, get up on their shoulders. You know, they like to boost somebody over the wall if they can. If they can't make it themselves. They, I think, sincerely love to see someone else make it.

[Terry Gross]

Tell us the story how you got your first guitar.

[Merle Haggard]

My first guitar?

[Terry Gross]

Yeah. Or how you started to play guitar. Well, as ever as it was, I.

[Merle Haggard]

Have an older brother named Lowell. And Lowell had a service station at the time. And there was a guy came in and wanted a couple dollars worth of gas. And didn't have no money. And he left a little Bronson. Sort of a Stella, Sears and Roebuck type guitar. And it was collateral. And he never did come back after it. And that old guitar sat in the closet there for a couple of years. And finally, I think my mother showed me a couple of chords. My brother didn't know how to play. And my dad had passed away. He was a musician in the family. So Mama showed me C chord that Daddy had showed her. And she didn't know how to make secord very good. But I went, took it from that. And I beat around on that old Bronson. I think it was a Bronson guitar.

[Terry Gross]

I imagine when you first got the guitar, you were playing the songs that you heard on the radio. How did you start writing songs yourself?

[Merle Haggard]

Well, about the same time that I discovered Jimmie Rogers. I was about 12 years old, I discovered Hank Williams. And I. I remember seeing on the yellow MGM records. There was the artist's name. And then there was another name underneath that artist. Small, very small letters. And it said composer. And I didn't Know what a composer was? I asked my mother, I said, what does this mean? She said, I don't know. And she called the record store and they told her, that's the writer. That's the guy that writes the songs. And it seemed to me that very important to have your name in both places there. I noticed that Hank Williams had a little extra clout because he wrote his own songs. Jimmie Rogers, the same thing, you know. And so I felt it was just as necessary to become a songwriter as it was to try to learn to play the guitar or, you know, it was certainly a tool that most people, I think, in the business would like to be a singer songwriter if they could be. Because it is in some way your retirement. You know, you can have a great career. And if you don't write songs or have a publishing company or something to lean back on when it's all over, it's a pretty hard drop back to reality, you know. And once you've learned to live under the conditions I've learned to live on, you better have yourself a publishing company or I'll have to go back to being an outlaw.

[Terry Gross]

When you started writing songs, did you realize that you could write autobiographical songs from your own life, or did you think you had to copy other people's songs?

[Merle Haggard]

Well, I really didn't realize what method to take at first. I must have wrote maybe 1500 songs that weren't any good. Or at least I, you know, I never kept them. And finally, with a lot of help and a lot of people who had written hit songs who had become friends with, such as Fuzzy on, who became my personal manager, was a songwriter. And he helped me. He taught me how to write songs. And finally I wrote one that was worth keeping. And I think I've written about 300 keepers or so, maybe 400.

[Terry Gross]

Do you remember the first one that you felt this is worth keeping?

[Merle Haggard]

Yeah, it was sort of a rock and roll song, Elvis type rock and roll thing called if youf Want to Be My Woman. And Glen Campbell opened his shows with it for years. And I still did the song. And I wrote it when I was about 14, but I didn't keep very many. That was probably one out of that 1500 that got kept.

[Terry Gross]

Could you sing a couple of bars of it?

[Merle Haggard]

You like riding in the country in my Cadillac. And you keep. I learned. I keep pushing. You keep pushing me back. Something back. I didn't own the money that I earned but you refused to give me something equal in return. Don't look at me like maybe you don't understand if you want to be my woman, you know, you got to.

[Terry Gross]

Let me be your man now, during all the years that you were in and out of prisons and reform schools, did you ever think, I can make a living with music?

[Merle Haggard]

No, I very best. I counted on extra money, as I was saying, you know, like, you know, maybe a hobby, you know, I figured I was going to have to have some other means of employment, you know, support.

[Terry Gross]

So what made you think, well, I can make a living out of this?

[Merle Haggard]

Well, I. When I came out of the penitentiary, I went to work for my brother, digging ditches and wiring houses. We had. He had an electrical company, Hag Electric, and he was paying me $80 a week. This was 1960, and I was working eight hours a day there. And I got me a. A little gig playing guitar four nights a week for 10 bucks a night. And there was a little radio show that we had to broadcast from this little nightclub called High Pockets. And it just all started from that. Some people that had. That was local stars around the. Heard me on this radio program and came down and offered me a better job in town. And it wasn't just a matter of weeks until I was part of the main clique in Bakersfield. And it was hard to get in that clique. There was a lot of people like Buck Owens, and there was people that were really good and proved how good they were later on with their success. And Bakersfield was some sort of a. I don't know, it was like country music artists found their way to Bakersfield and then had their success out of there. I don't understand why. Actually, maybe because of the migration that took place in the 30s or whatever. There was a lot of people that came out there from Oklahoma and Arkansas and Texas that had a lot of soul and this thing we call country music kind of came out of those hockey talks, you know, and some of the same area that a lot of other things came out of.

[Terry Gross]

Was it hard for you to adjust to success and stardom? Having come from poverty and, you know, having lived in prison off and on for so many years, I think it's hard for a lot of people to adjust to that.

[Merle Haggard]

Well, you know, a lot of people may or may not understand how hard it is for a person coming out of an institution. You know, whether it be a prison or whether it be some sort of a mental institution, whether it be the army or whatever, there's a. There's a thing that happens like when you leave the penitentiary and you've been there for three years. You have friends and you have a way of life and you have a routine and, and a whole way of life that you just give up all of a sudden. One day you're there and next day you're not there and you don't have any more friends from the outside because things went on when you left and you can't find anybody there. And the people you left behind in prison are really your only friends. And there's a period of adjustment that took me about 120 days, I don't know, about four months. A couple times I really wanted to go back. And it's really a weird sensation. It's the loneliest feeling in the world about the second night out of the penitentiary.

[David Bianculli]

Merle Haggard speaking to Terry Gross in 1995. He died in 2016. Coming up, classical music critic Lloyd Schwartz reviews two albums featuring Paul Robeson. This is FRESH air.

[Capella University]

This message comes from NPR sponsor Disney. Season one of Andor had critics calling it the best Star wars series yet. Season two of the Emmy nominated series is now streaming on Disney. Follow Cassian Andor as he embarks on a path from a rebel to a hero starring Diego Luna. And from creator Tony Gilroy, writer of Michael Clayton and the bourne identity. Season two of Andor is now streaming only on Disney.

[NPR]

99% of the US population lives within.

Listening range of at least one public.

Media station and everyone can listen to NPR podcasts free of charge.

That means you get completely unpaywalled access.

To stories, prize winning reporting and shows that represent the voices in every corner of the country.

[Merle Haggard]

Hear the bigger picture every day on npr.

[David Bianculli]

Bass baritone Paul Robeson was one of the most popular figures of the 20th century and also one of the most controversial. He died in 1976 at the age of 77, leaving a huge imprint on music, politics and race relations. Our classical music critic Lloyd Schwartz reviews two recent releases in which Robeson is the subject. One is a CD called Robeson by 38 year old bass baritone Devon Tynes, who says he grew, grew up being constantly compared to Robeson. The other release is an almost complete 14 CD set of Robeson's own recordings.

[Terry Gross]

There's an old man called Mississippi. That's the old man that I'd like to be. What does he care if the world's got troubles? What does he care if land ain't free? Old man river, that old man river. He must know something but don't say nothing. He just keeps rolling. He keeps on rolling along. He don't plant Titus he don't plant cotton and damn that plantum is soon forgotten. But O man river, he just keeps rolling along. You and me, we sweat and strain. Body all aching and wrecked with pain. Tote at barge, lift at bail. Get a little drunk and you land in jail. I get weary and sick of trying I'm tired of living and scared of dying. But old man river, he just keeps rolling along.

[NPR]

Ol man river from the landmark 1929 musical Showboat, was the great bass baritone Paul Robeson's most famous song and the song that also made him famous. Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein wrote it for him as the stevedore Jims expression of his darkest dilemma. Tired of living and scared of dying, a line that has the tragic weight of a certain Hamlet soliloquy. It's one of the most powerful numbers ever written for a Broadway musical. Now, some younger performers have expressed serious reservations about it. Is it really just a demeaning minstrel song written by white people for a black performer? In his concert recitals, Robeson himself changed the stevedore's inner questioning to a public battle cry. I must keep fighting until I'm dying. In his new album called Robeson, 38 year old bass baritone Devon Tynes, one of the leading musical artists of our generation, says that over the years he has changed his mind about the singer to whom he has been frequently compared. In his liner notes, Tynes writes of Robeson's suicide attempt after what may have been a CIA effort to drug him. Tynes identifies with Robeson's desperation as if it were a fever dream reflecting his own most intimate struggles.

[Terry Gross]

What is a manica to a name? A map of a flag I see a certain word and democracy what is America to me? The house I live in, the friends that I have found, the folks beyond the railroad and the people all around, the worker and the farmer, the sailor on the sea, the men who built this country. That's America to me.

[NPR]

Paul Robeson sang the upper song the House I Live in at many of his concerts. It was first introduced by Frank sinatra in a 1945 Oscar winning short about America as a melting pot. On his Robeson album, Devon Tynes and his band the Truth do something similar to what Robeson did with Old Man River. After singing the Beginning as it was written, Tynes adds his own new angry lyrics about the way America has betrayed its ideals of equality. Find America for me, he concludes.

[Terry Gross]

Truth becomes banished and justice never won. Our hopes to find some freedom still just raisins in the sun. It's sad to see it failing. It's the way it's always been to never cleanse the staining of its bloody primal sin. Cause that's America. Who, What's America? Who's America? Where's America? Find America for me.

[NPR]

In the ultra romantic Rodgers and Hammerstein ballad Some Enchanted Evening, tynes makes another radical transformation by simply changing the pronouns. The song becomes his love song to Robeson. But Tynes also knows that anyone who hears the song without looking at the liner notes would hear it as a love song from one man to another man. And Tynes, who is openly gay, has arrived at a point in his career when he can feel free to express openly his most personal feelings.

[Terry Gross]

Some enchanted evening. You may see a stranger. You may see a stranger across a a crowded room. And somehow you'll know. You'll know even then that somewhere you'll see him again and again.

[NPR]

The 14 discs of Paul Robeson, the Voice of Freedom, are, of course, a treasure and include some extraordinary live performances and other cuts that were never released. Robeson was also a powerful and versatile stage and film actor, and one of the highlights of this set is his recording of Othello, which he played on Broadway. It's thrilling to hear Robeson speaking as well as singing, and it's thrilling to hear Tynes responding directly to Robeson with his own passion and also in magnificent voice.

[David Bianculli]

Lloyd Schwartz reviewed Paul Robeson, the Voice of Freedom and the Devon Tynes album Robeson. Coming up, Justin Chang reviews David Cronenberg's new movie the Shrouds. This is FRESH air.

[Merle Haggard]

This is Eric Glass. In Lily's family, there's a story everybody knows by heart.

[NPR]

If this story had never happened, all.

[Terry Gross]

Of us wouldn't be here right now.

[Merle Haggard]

Sammy wouldn't be here, Nana wouldn't be here, Wally wouldn't be here.

[Terry Gross]

Anyone that we know wouldn't be here.

[NPR]

So what happens when Lily's mom tells her this story is not true?

[Merle Haggard]

This American Life Surprising Stories every week.

[Synchrony Bank]

NPR informs and connects communities around the country, providing reliable information in times of crisis. Federal funding helps us fulfill our mission to create a more informed public and ensures that public radio remains available to everyone. Learn more about safeguarding the future of public media. Visit protectmypublicmedia.org the scary new movie Sinners.

[Merle Haggard]

From the director of Black Panther finds Michael B. Jordan playing twin brothers. It's got vampires, it's got great music, and it' a fun one to see with a big crowd.

[NPR]

This is the most excited I've been about a movie in a very long time.

[Merle Haggard]

We'll tell you why you should see Sinners on the biggest screen. You can listen to the Pop Culture Happy hour podcast from NPR.

[David Bianculli]

In the Shrouds, the new thriller from the 82 year old Canadian filmmaker David Cronenberg, Vincent Cassel plays a wealthy tech entrepreneur who's devised an unusual technology to help people still grieving their loved ones. Our film critic Justin Chang has this review.

[NPR]

When the Shrouds premiered at film festivals last year, David Cronenberg described it as his most personal work, a deeply felt response to the death of his longtime wife from cancer in 2017. The movie is about a man named Karsh who lost his wife Rebecca to cancer four years earlier. That's not the only similarity. If you know what Cronenberg looks like, you'll see that Karsch, played by Vincent Cassel with a silvery shock of hair, resembles the director. Maybe not a dead ringer, but close enough to give you a chill and a bit of a chuckle. That's the thing about the Shrouds. It's deeply morbid and sad, but it's also disarmingly funny. Karsh is the mastermind behind a company called GraveTech, which allows people to monitor the remains of their dead loved ones before the body is buried. It's wrapped in a high tech metal shroud equipped with an MRI style scanner. And so at any time with a swipe of your phone, you can watch a feed from the grave of the decomposing body. It's not just on your phone either. The feed also goes to a screen built into the person's headstone. Karsh himself uses GraveTech obsessively, keeping close tabs on his wife Becca's body at all times. This has naturally made it difficult for him to move on. One amusing early scene finds Karsh on a blind date with a woman who heads for the exit the minute she finds out what he does for a living. The next day, Karsh is debriefing the date with Becca's sister Terry, played by Diane Kruger.

[Merle Haggard]

Another bad date last night she put.

[Terry Gross]

Off by your desperation.

[Merle Haggard]

Like the last one, I'm out of practice.

It's been decades since I had this abuse of woman.

I'm never really sure whether I'm flirting or not. That's what you get for having had a successful marriage. I don't have that problem. Should I give up trying to find a girlfriend?

Or should I just sink gracefully into terminal asexuality?

You'll never replace Becca.

I'm not trying to.

[Terry Gross]

I did love that body.

[Merle Haggard]

What you provocatively said was a lot like mine.

[NPR]

You have her body.

[Merle Haggard]

I have my own body.

[NPR]

Cronenberg is often described as a master of body horror, a subgenre he helped pioneer with early efforts like the Brood and Scanners, and recently pushed to audacious new extremes with the wondrously icky crimes of the future. The label can be misleading, though. Cronenberg's films are even more cerebral than they are visceral, and he's never been purely interested in grotesque for grotesque's sake. The Shrouds is certainly a body horror movie in perhaps the most relatable sense. It's about the physical ravages of illness and death. At various points, Karsh sees Becca, also played by Diane Kruger, in dreamlike flashbacks that reveal exactly what the cancer did to her body. I can't think of a filmmaker besides Cronenberg who could present the body this way with clinical directness, undimmed desire and real tenderness. Early on in the film, someone vandalizes the Grave Tech cemetery, ripping the headstones from their foundations and hacking into the video feeds for reasons unknown. The Shrouds isn't just a horror movie about corporeal decay. It's a thriller steeped in techno paranoia. To get to the bottom of the vandalism, Karsh enlists the help of Terry's ex husband, a computer whiz played by an unnervingly twitchy guy, Pearce. Karsh also relies on an AI personal assistant, voiced by, you guessed it, Kruger again, who doesn't seem entirely trustworthy. There are whispers that the Vandals are aligned with shadowy Russian and or Chinese forces, hinting at a mass data theft conspiracy that may or may not exist. The Shrouds never fully coheres as a mystery. In the end, it's an intriguing but not especially satisfying puzzle. I didn't mind that about it. Cronenberg isn't out to provide easy answers. He's saying that we live in such a 247 Internet fog now. Who knows what could be out there, mining the most human and vulnerable parts of ourselves. Our habits, our yearnings, our relationships. This isn't a new theme for Cronenberg. He's always been fascinated by the way technology alters our minds and even our bodies. In his 1983 classic Videodrome, the director inserted a Betamax cassette into his protagonist's torso, literalizing the idea of what TV is doing to us. The Shrouds isn't nearly as graphic, but it doesn't have to be. It's set in a world where most of us have all but fused with our phones already. All of which is to say that this seemingly death obsessed movie about grief and desire and the unsettling power of technology to assuage them is also a movie about life in the way more than a few of us live now.

[David Bianculli]

Justin Chang is a film critic for the New Yorker. He reviewed the Shrouds, now playing in theaters on Monday's show, A conversation with author and executive Daria Burke about her new memoir, of My Own Making. It explores her growing up in 1980s Detroit amid addiction and instability and the years she spent trying to outrun that past by building a carefully curated, outwardly successful life. I hope you can join us. Fresh Air's executive producer is Danny Miller. Sam Brigger is our managing producer. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham with additional engineering support by Joyce Lieberman, Julian Hertzfeld and Adam Stanischewski. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Meyers, Ann Marie Baldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Yakundi and Anna Bauman. Our digital media producer is Molly Seavey Nesper. For Terry Gross and Tanya Moseley, I'm David Biancooli.

[Synchrony Bank]

This message comes from NPR sponsor Home Instead. Home Instead provides adaptable in home senior care plans from qualified, compassionate caregivers that lend a hand when you need it most. Learn [e-mail] Home Instead for a better what's next?

[Capella University]

This message comes from Capella University. At Capella, you can earn your degree with support from people who care about your success. A different future is closer than you think with Capella University. Learn [e-mail] this message comes from Odoo.

[Synchrony Bank]

Some say Odoo business management software is like fertilizer for businesses because it promotes growth. Others say Odoo is like a magic beanstalk because it scales with you and is magically affordable. And some describe Odoo's programs as building blocks for creating a custom software suite. But some say Odoo is fertilizer, magic beanstalk building blocks for business. Odoo exactly what a business needs. Sign [e-mail] that's o d o o dot com.