# 56 Years Ago Today, One of Country Music’s Most Defiant Anthems Fueled a No. 1 Album That Cemented Merle Haggard’s Blue-Collar Image

- URL: https://talkfuse.com/story/56-years-ago-today-one-of-country-musics-most-defiant-anthems-fueled-a-no-1-album-that-cemented-merle-haggards-blue-collar-image/
- Published: 2026-11-07T15:30:00+00:00
- Updated: 2026-11-07T16:25:57+00:00
- Original publisher: American Songwriter
- Original article: https://americansongwriter.com/56-years-ago-today-one-of-country-musics-most-defiant-anthems-fueled-a-no-1-album-that-cemented-merle-haggards-blue-collar-image/
- Topics: Americas, Entertainment, Music, World

## Key points

- Haggard’s live album topped the country chart on 7 November 1970.
- Its title track spent three weeks at number one.
- Capitol rejected his planned follow-up about an interracial romance.

## Summary

On 7 November 1970, Merle Haggard’s live album *The Fightin’ Side of Me* topped the Billboard Top Country Albums chart. Its success strengthened his working-man image, at a time when the United States was divided over the Vietnam War and the protests against it.

The title song had reached number one on the US country singles chart for three weeks after its release in January 1970. Recorded live in Philadelphia on Valentine’s Day, the album also featured songs by Jimmie Rodgers and Woody Guthrie, plus impressions of other country singers. Haggard later expressed mixed feelings about the political image built by this song and “Okie From Muskogee”; Capitol Records had rejected his intended follow-up, “Irma Jackson”, about an interracial romance.

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