Merle Haggard Sings "If I Could Only Fly"

One of my very favorite singers, period. If you set aside the fiddle and steel guitar you might think this was jazz. Each phrase gets a unique inflection, and Haggard's tone is gorgeous. He's a master; a musician's musician. It's a wrenching song ("just dismal thinking on a dismal day"), written by the late Texas singer-songwriter Blaze Foley, memorialized in Lucinda Williams' "Drunken Angel." Notice how the song goes places, instead of just shifting back in forth in place. The chorus extends beyond where you think it might end, and the intervals throughout are really sweet, often moving past the expected resolutions.