Merle Haggard has written a lot of great songs on the subject of mama. Every self-respecting country musician has.
The hell-raising "Mama Tried" might be the more popular selection, but it's "Mama's Hungry Eyes" that will likely leave you in tears.
Released in 1969, the song paints in vivid details a mother's sacrifices for her family in a California labor camp.
It was personal story for Haggard.
In his memoir Sing Me Back Home, Haggard describes traveling to the central valley shortly after his father died.
As we stepped down off the train, I looked down by the tracks and saw row after row of one room, canvas-covered cabins, all just alike. It was not till years later ... I realized how much that scene impressed me. That's where the first line of 'Mama's Hungry Eyes' came from.
A juvenile delinquent and prisoner at the age of 20, the singer often felt guilty about what he put his mother through.
Haggard channeled these painful emotions and fleeting childhood images into a country classic.
Mother's Day is this Sunday, people.
- Preview/Download "Mama's Hungry Eyes" (1969 Version)
- Preview/Download "Mama's Hungry Eyes" (2007 Version, with Alison Krauss)
- Video of Merle Haggard performing "Mama's Hungry Eyes"
Image courtesy of Capitol Records
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