{"id":25780,"date":"2016-04-06T11:03:23","date_gmt":"2016-04-06T19:03:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/?p=25780"},"modified":"2016-04-06T15:23:31","modified_gmt":"2016-04-06T23:23:31","slug":"merle-haggard-flies-away-rip-merle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/2016-04\/merle-haggard-flies-away-rip-merle\/","title":{"rendered":"Merle Haggard Flies Away–RIP Merle"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"merle-haggard-110\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It saddens us to report that Merle Haggard,<\/strong> one of our beloved “real country” artists, has passed away today on his 79th birthday. While some have opined that Haggard’<\/strong>s death was due to last weekend’s ACM Awards\u00a0<\/strong>broadcast, he actually passed due to complications from pneumonia.\u00a0Haggard<\/strong> kicked off our “Real Country<\/strong><\/em>” series in 2010<\/a>, and in homage we can do no better than to re-post his classic, heartfelt cover of Blaze Foley’s<\/strong>\u00a0song If I Could Only Fly<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0(lyrics at bottom) below.<\/p>\n

Merle Haggard<\/strong> has flown away to that sweet by-and-by. \u00a0RIP Merle<\/strong>. \u00a0There’ll never be another like you.<\/p>\n[audio:https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/09-If-I-Could-Only-Fly.mp3|titles=09 If I Could Only Fly]\n

“I almost felt you touching me just now
\nI wish I knew which way to turn and go
\nI feel so good, and then I feel so bad
\nI wonder what I ought to do<\/p>\n

If I could only fly, if I could only fly
\nI’d bid this place goodbye to come and be with you
\nBut I can hardly stand and I got no where to run
\nAnother sinking sun and one more lonely night<\/p>\n

The wind keeps blowing, somewhere, everyday
\nTell me things get better, somewhere, up the way
\nJust dismal thinking on a dismal day
\nAnd sad songs for us to bare<\/p>\n

If I could only fly
\nIf we could only fly
\nIf we could only fly
\nThere’d be no more lonely nights<\/p>\n

You know, sometimes, I write happy songs
\nThen some little thing goes wrong
\nI wish they all could make you smile<\/p>\n

Coming home soon and I wanna stay
\nMaybe we can, somehow, get away
\nI wish you could come with me when I go again<\/p>\n

If I could only fly, if I could only fly
\nI’d bid this place goodbye to come and be with you
\nBut I can hardly stand and I got no where to run
\nAnother sinking sun and one more lonely night”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It saddens us to report that Merle Haggard, one of our beloved “real country” artists, has passed away today on his 79th birthday. While some have opined that Haggard’s death was due to last weekend’s ACM Awards\u00a0broadcast, he actually passed due to complications from pneumonia.\u00a0Haggard kicked off our “Real Country” series in 2010, and in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25780"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25780\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25796,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25780\/revisions\/25796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}