When I was just a little girl
I loved to sing any song
But I didn’t listen to much country
I wasn’t that far along
But I loved to sing and would welcome
Any chance for this old girl
So anytime to sing I would
With Daddy, Marty and Merle
Daddy just loved country
Those songs would make him cry
And when Marty and Merle would sing
Those songs just couldn’t go by
We all learned Maria and Sing Me Back Home
I loved those family sing-a-longs
With Daddy, Marty and Merle
They were all just good old boys
And I love them every one
I learned to love country
Because of what they’ve done
They taught me to be a proud little girl
They taught me how to live
And I love those family sing-a-longs
With Daddy, Marty and Merle
Daddy’s gone now but he’ll live on
Marty and Merle are still singing
And it’s like he’s never been gone
For the memories they keep bringing
I’ll never forget El Paso or Mama’s Hungry Eyes
I love those family sing-a-longs
With Daddy, Marty and Merle
Repeat Chorus
Yes I love those family sing-a-longs
With Daddy, Marty and Merle
I wrote that song when I was about 22. Daddy had been dead for a couple of years and I woke up out of a dead sleep one night and sang it until I had it memorized. The next morning I went over to Mom’s and sang it for her. She started crying. I couldn’t believe that I had written a famous country and western song. And of course I hadn’t but I had written a song about my Daddy and if nobody else ever heard it or cared about it, I had.
And our life singing is just as I described it. We sang in the car. Anytime we went anywhere we begged Daddy to sing us a song. And most of the time he would. So we learned his songs. Because he was not going to sing songs he didn’t know. And he wasn’t going to sing songs by people he didn’t like. So if we were going to be able to sing with Daddy then we had to sing his songs.
Daddy loved Merle Haggard and Marty Robbins. He loved Loretta Lynn, Tammy Wynette and Lynn Anderson. We weren’t very old when he bought a console stereo. It was beautiful, and big. He would buy albums for Mom and she would buy albums for him. He loved Ray Charles. But he really loved his country stuff.
And I loved to sing. One of my jobs on Saturday morning was to polish the furniture in the living room. I would do that an play one of Mom or Daddy’s albums. I think I liked Tammy Wynette the best. But she never opened her mouth when she sang. I loved her hair. Of course it was bleached blond, teased sky high. Oh, but I thought she was beautiful. And you could listen to her songs and know that she had had such a hard life.
But the songs by Mary Robbins and Merle Haggard were the ones that brought me to tears every time. It did Mom and Daddy too. I still get chills when I hear “My Woman, My Woman, My Wife” or “This Time You Gave Me a Mountain”. I know that our life was not that hard. My mom and dad worked hard, every day, but we always seemed to have enough. We always seemed to have all we ever wanted, or needed. Maybe we didn’t know any better. I know that Mom and Daddy had it pretty hard growing up but they had each other and us, so things had to be so much better.
After Daddy died Mom used to sit in the living room, in the rocker that Kim got her one year for Christmas and listen to Marty or Merle or Tammy or Loretta and just cry. I knew that most of those days she was thinking about Daddy. But we all got to the point when Merle would sing “Mama’s Hungry Eyes” that we would all cry.
After learning about the death of Merle Haggard I began singing this song over and over again. Daddy died in 1977. Marty Robbins died in 1982. And now Merle has died. He probably lived a whole lot longer than he should have. He lived hard. But boy, he had a voice and he could tell a story with a song. And in my mind I can hear Daddy singing along with Merle every time. I can only imagine how excited Daddy would be to be able to listen to both Marty and Merle in heaven.