If I Could Only Fly

Background

The nineties had been the most trying decade of Haggard's professional life. Besought with financial woes that lead to bankruptcy in 1993, Haggard had also run afoul with his record label boss Mike Curb. Since 1990, Haggard had released three albums on Curb and all three had charted lower than any had in his thirty-year career, with the last of them, 1996, not charting at all. Personally, Haggard had been doing much better; he had kicked the drug and alcohol problems which had plagued him for much of the eighties and had married his fifth wife Teresa Lane in 1993. In 1995, he had been inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, but when his contract with Curb expired he signed with the independent ANTI- label. The move paid immediate dividends both critically and artistically; no longer compelled to compete for airplay on country radio with a fashionable hit single, the album focused on Haggard's strengths—his singing and songwriting—and wound up rising to number 26 on the Hot Country Album Chart, his highest showing since 1987's Chill Factor. Critics were nearly unanimous in their praise for the album, which remained on the charts for twenty-seven weeks.

"(Think About a) Lullaby," was written by Haggard and his wife Teresa. The album's title track had been previously recorded by Haggard with Willie Nelson on their 1987 duet album Seashores of Old Mexico.

Reception

Comparing If I Could Only Fly favorably to Bob Dylan's Time Out of Mind, Ryan Kearney of Pitchfork writes, "in listening to their reflections on aging and the accompanying doubts, we can learn how to face our own mortality with greater equanimity and fewer regrets." Ben Ratliff of Rolling Stone gave the album 4 stars, enthusing, "...what a lyricist he still can be. All the songs emanate from a single persona, an aging, cloistered singer (Haggard is in his sixties) whose routine—avoiding drugs, taking comfort from cushioned bus seats, being honest with his kids — is all he has". Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic wrote: "If I Could Only Fly is the first album in years that deserves to be compared to Haggard's classic work." Music critic Robert Christgau wrote "After a long, dispiriting string of releases that gradually devolved from hit-or-miss to cynical, he comes out of nowhere on a punk label to cut one of the very best albums of his very uneven recording career."

Track listing

All songs by Merle Haggard unless otherwise noted:

1. "Wishing All These Old Things Were New" – 3:20
2. "Honky Tonky Mama" (Haggard, Traditional) – 3:07
3. "Turn to Me" – 3:10
4. "If I Could Only Fly" (Blaze Foley) – 4:59
5. "Crazy Moon" (Haggard, Max Barnes) – 2:07
6. "Bareback" – 2:12
7. "(Think About A) Lullaby" (Haggard, Theresa Lane Haggard) – 2:24
8. "I'm Still Your Daddy" – 2:54
9. "Proud to Be Your Old Man" (Haggard, Abe Manuel, Jr.) – 2:26
10. "Leavin's Getting Harder" – 2:10
11. "Thanks to Uncle John" – 2:43
12. "Listening (To the Wind)" – 4:10

Personnel

Production notes: