Jude Northcutt Okie from Muskogee

Jude Northcutt performing "Okie from Muskogee" at the Centennial Rodeo Opry in OKC's Historic Stockyards City on the March 7th, 2009.

"It started out as a joke. We wrote to be satirical originally. But then people latched onto it, and it really turned into this song that looked into the mindset of people so opposite of who and where we were. My dad's people. He's from Muskogee, you know?" Haggard once noted about "Okie from Muskogee." In fact, critic Kurt Wolff wrote that Haggard always considered what became a redneck anthem to be a spoof, and that today fans - even the hippies that are derided in the lyrics - have taken a liking to the song and take humor in some of the lyrics.

Written by Haggard and Roy Edward Burris (drummer for Haggard's backing band, The Strangers) during the height of the Vietnam War, "Okie from Muskogee" grew from the two trading one-liners about small-town life, where conservative values were the norm and outsiders with ideals contrary to those ways were unwelcome. Here, the singer reflects on how proud he is to hail from Middle America, where its residents were patriotic, and didn't smoke marijuana, take LSD, wear beads and sandals, burn draft cards or challenge authority.

While viewed as a satire of small-town America and its reaction to the anti-war protests and counterculture seen in America's larger cities, Allmusic writer Bill Janovitz writes that the song also "convincingly (gives) voice to a proud, straight-laced truck-driver type. ... (I)n the end, he identifies with the narrator. He does not position the protagonist as angry, reactionary, or judgmental; it is more that the guy, a self-confessed 'square,' is confused by such changes and with a chuckle comes to the conclusion that he and his ilk have the right sort of life for themselves."

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Tags:

• Merle
• Haggard
• Jude
• Northcutt
• Okie
• from
• Muskogee
• Centennial
• Rodeo
• Opry
• Oklahoma
• City
• Historic
• Stockyards

[thebarnboy]

WONDERFUL JOB!!

KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!

[18spd51]

What a great cover of one of Merle Haggard's greatest hits. 5*****s!!!!! Thanks for posting!

Have a blessed week,

Jeff