When Merle Haggard died on his 79th birthday on April 6, many Dark Corner residents (along with millions of Americans) felt a nostalgic tug much different than that felt at the death of any other country or pop singer.

That’s because he was so associated with a song called, “Sing Me Back Home Before I Die.”

Merle (or “The Hag” as really devoted fans called him) wrote, recorded and released the song in November, 1967, as the first single and title track from his album, “Sing Me Back Home.” It became his third number one hit on the country chart and stayed there for almost 20 weeks.

Merle knew well how prisoners feel during incarceration. He wrote a number of songs that grew out of his own personal time in San Quentin State Prison in California for three years because of a robbery that went bad.

In fact, “Sing Me Back Home Before I Die” depicts a portion of his friendship with a fellow inmate, “Rabbit,” who was executed after an escape attempt caused the death of a security guard.

The song begins with Merle taking the role of an inmate in a state penitentiary. A condemned prisoner is being led toward the death chamber. The inmate regularly plays guitar and sings in his jail cell to pass the time, so the condemned man asks if the inmate might be allowed to perform a final song before they continue to the death chamber. He is allowed to do so.

The song ends with the inmate recalling a church choir’s visit to the prison a week earlier to sing hymns for the inmates. One of the hymns had caused the condemned prisoner to have memories of his mother’s singing that particular one, and remember happier childhood days before his life took the wrong direction.

Merle always felt a particular fondness for “Sing Me Back Home Before I Die.” Perhaps, it was the personal connection with “Rabbit.” Or, perhaps, it was a wish for himself; that he would want someone to do the same for him when he knew the end was near.

Song pioneers Bob Wills and Jimmy Rodgers had always been heroes for Merle, and assuredly he had been influenced by one of the best-selling records of the early 20th century—“The Prisoner’s Song” by Vernon Dalhart, released in October, 1924.

In fact, Merle may also have been influenced by another song about a man in prison thinking of home. It was “Green, Green Grass of Home,” first recorded by Porter Wagoner in 1965, and taken to a worldwide No. 1 hit by Tom Jones in 1966.

Sing Me Back Home Before I Die

The warden led a prisoner down the hallway to his doom
And I stood up to say good-bye like all the rest
And I heard him tell the warden just before he reached my cell
“Let my guitar-playing friend do my request.”

Let him sing me back home with a song I used to hear
Make my old memories come alive
Take me away and turn back the years
Sing me back home before I die.

I recall last Sunday morning a choir from ‘cross the street
Came in to sing a few old gospel songs
And I heard him tell the singers, “There’s a song my mama sang
Could I hear once before you move along?”

Won’t you sing me back home, with the song I used to hear
Make my old memories come alive
Take me away and turn back the years
Sing me back home before I die.

Sing me back home before I die.