At moments like this, the instinctive nature of Haggardโ€™s easy facility with language becomes endearingly apparent: imitated/duplicated, the choruses just fall out of him. On cue, the radio plays Cashโ€™s โ€œA Boy Named Sueโ€. Haggard looks at once glum and wistful.

โ€œCash and I were real good friends,โ€ he says, softly. โ€œBut that movie [Walk The Line] was terrible, I thought. I mean, maybe if you didnโ€™t know him it was okay, butโ€ฆ I can remember Bob Dylan walking around Cash in a circle, looking him up and down and saying โ€˜You beat any goddamn thing I ever seen.โ€™ And thatโ€™s Bob Dylan, the hippest motherfucker thereโ€™s ever been. Trying to take a guy [Joaquin Phoenix] thatโ€™s five foot five and make Johnny Cash outta himโ€ฆ that was funny to me.โ€

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EVZDbnmmFY

I wonder if that outlaw peer group were really as much of a gang as they portrayed themselves.

โ€œAw, yeah,โ€ he declares. โ€œWeโ€™re still fans of each otherโ€™s work. If I canโ€™t write something, I hope Willie [Nelson] or Kris [Kristofferson] can. I remember one time Willie was listening to a Kris Kristofferson record, and I walked in and I said to Willie, โ€˜I guess heโ€™s about the best writer in the world, isnโ€™t he?โ€™ And Willie turned that sumbitch off, turned around and said โ€˜Yeah, after me and you.โ€™โ€

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The radio in Luluโ€™s moves onto โ€œThe Ballad Of The Green Beretsโ€, the swaggering martial anthem made a Number One hit in 1966 by Staff Sergeant Barry Sadler. Itโ€™s only sort of a country song, but itโ€™s still the sort of country song which causes many people to mistake the genre for a crock of flag-wavinโ€™, God-fearinโ€™ sentimental schlock freighted with a menacing undertow of xenophobic suggestion that youโ€™re not from round here, are yuh? Itโ€™s an almost amusing irony that the one country song that has been most often used to uphold that simplistic prejudice was written by one of the formโ€™s most subtle and astute composers. Merle Haggard and The Strangers are still touring, these days mostly playing in casinos and theme theatres. Are they still playing โ€œOkie From Muskogeeโ€?

โ€œYeah,โ€ he says.