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"The Fightin' Side of Me" is a song written and recorded by American country music artist Merle Haggard and The Strangers. It was released in January 1970 as the first single and title track from the album The Fightin' Side of Me. The song became one of the most famous of his career.
The Fightin' Side of Me is the second live album by Merle Haggard and The Strangers, released in 1970.Like the song "Okie from Muskogee" led to a quickly released album, The Fightin' Side of Me was also quickly released because of the run of success of Haggard's patriotic hit single "The Fightin' Side of Me".
Cody Jinks song Hippies and Cowboys has the following lyrics Some old drunk on a bar stool on a Merle Haggard tuneThat's my kind of room" In the 1970s, several rock acts responded in their own songs to Haggard's criticism of hippie counterculture in "Okie from Muskogee" and "The Fightin' Side of Me".
In Haggard's episode of CMT's Inside Fame, Brian Mansfield of USA Today insists, "I think between 1966 and 1969/1970, when he's doing "Okie from Muskogee" and "Fightin' Side of Me," that period was every bit the match of Hank Williams from about 1950 to 1952.
"The Fightin' Side of Me" (with The Strangers) 1 92 1 — The Fightin' Side of Me "Jesus, Take a Hold" (with the Strangers) 3 107 3 — Hag "I Can't Be Myself" (with the Strangers) 3 106 2 — 1971 "Soldier's Last Letter" (with the Strangers) 3 90 — "Someday We'll Look Back" (with the Strangers) 2 119 2 — Someday We'll Look Back
The most popular live version, and the only live version released as a single, was recorded during a 1970 Haggard concert in Philadelphia that became the live album The Fightin' Side of Me. The song was included on a couple of Haggard's other live albums from the era, notably "Okie From Muskogee", released in 1969 and "I Love Dixie Blues ...
Waylon Jennings, Charley Pride and Merle Haggard (as well as his song "The Fightin' Side of Me") are mentioned in the lyrics; Coe also uses loose impersonations of each artist in doing so, and also makes reference to Faron Young's "Hello Walls" in the background vocals, noting that "you don't have to call me" any of those names anymore.
"Workin' Man Blues" is Haggard's tribute to a core group of his fans: The American blue-collared working man. Backed by a strong electric guitar beat that typified Haggard's signature Bakersfield Sound, he fills the role of one of those workers expressing pride in values such as hard work and sacrifice, despite the resulting fatigue and the stress of raising a large family.