Overall about difficult moments of disappointment and vulnerability. Having hope and longing, while remaining optimistic for the future. Encourages the belief that with each new morning there is a chance for things to improve.
The chorus offers a glimmer of optimism and a chance at a resolution and redemption in the future.
Captures the rollercoaster of emotions of feeling lost while loving someone who is not there for you, feeling let down and abandoned while waiting for a lover. Lost with no direction, "Now I'm up in the air with the rain in my hair, Nowhere to go, I can go anywhere"
The bridge shows signs of longing and a plea for companionship. The Lyrics express a desire for authentic connection and the importance of Loving someone just as they are. "Just in passing, I'm not asking. That you be anyone but you”
Well, me and Roy Nichols and couple other fellows in the band
We got to talking it over and thought we'd take off a little time if we can
I don't mean to say I'm quitting, I'm just tired of making love to a telephone
I'm coming home if I can find me a flight this morning, man
The Okie from Muskogee is coming home
Play it, Ken
It has been twenty years of traveling
Twenty years of living out on the road
Learning these chords and learning these songs
Paying up all these dues they said I owe
And I may always be a rambler never lose the urge to roam
I'm coming home if I can find me a flight this morning, man
The Okie from Muskogee is coming home
Count it up, Marc
We got to talking it over and thought we'd take off a little time if we can
I don't mean to say I'm quitting, I'm just tired of making love to a telephone
I'm coming home if I can find me a flight this morning, man
The Okie from Muskogee is coming home
Play it, Ken
It has been twenty years of traveling
Twenty years of living out on the road
Learning these chords and learning these songs
Paying up all these dues they said I owe
And I may always be a rambler never lose the urge to roam
I'm coming home if I can find me a flight this morning, man
The Okie from Muskogee is coming home
Count it up, Marc
Lyrics submitted by almostmanda, edited by dcroxton
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This song was originally written by a guy called Peter Gutteridge. He was one of the founders of the "Dunedin Sound" a musical scene in the south of New Zealand in the early 80s. From there it was covered by "The Clean" one of the early bands of that scene (he had originally been a member of in it's early days, writing a couple of their best early songs). The Dunedin sound, and the Clean became popular on american college radio in the mid to late 80s. I guess Yo La Tengo heard that version.
Great version of a great song,
Magical
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Plastic Bag
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“Plastic Bag” is a song about searching for an escape from personal problems and hoping to find it in the lively atmosphere of a Saturday night party. Ed Sheeran tells the story of his friend and the myriad of troubles he is going through. Unable to find any solutions, this friend seeks a last resort in a party and the vanity that comes with it.
“I overthink and have trouble sleepin’ / All purpose gone and don’t have a reason / And there’s no doctor to stop this bleedin’ / So I left home and jumped in the deep end,” Ed Sheeran sings in verse one. He continues by adding that this person is feeling the weight of having disappointed his father and doesn’t have any friends to rely on in this difficult moment. In the second verse, Ed sings about the role of grief in his friend’s plight and his dwindling faith in prayer. “Saturday night is givin’ me a reason to rely on the strobe lights / The lifeline of a promise in a shot glass, and I’ll take that / If you’re givin’ out love from a plastic bag,” Ed sings on the chorus, as his friend turns to new vices in hopes of feeling better.
Okie is a derogatory term, but Merle Haggard has every right to use it, as do I. Because our families were part of the Okie migration to California. You can't use it on us as a bad word, but we can use it about ourselves as a term of pride. It's taking back something that was once derogatory and making it our own. My folks moved from Oklahoma and Arkansas to California in the twenties and thirties to pick cotton, which makes them Okies. You were an Okie even if you were from Arkansas, although sometimes they said Arkie too. But my folks were Okies, I'm descended from Okies, and I'm proud of it, and I'll use the term Okie any time I want. Merle Haggard has certainly earned that right himself. He's right from around the same area my folks are from -- Bakersfield, Wasco, etc. He talks like them. He moves like them. He looks like them. We're Okies, and nothing wrong with that. I agree the song was originally intended to be satirical, though, and then veered off course when people started identifying with it. Merle Haggard was hardly a pristine, law-abiding figure and he rarely tried to look like one.
Back during the 1960's and 1970's, the ones who made the most noise were the ones who ripped out the rock and roll during that time in history. It turns out, ironically enough, those who spoke for the working class musically spoke for the war effort in Vietnam. Nowadays, you don't find that unless you listen to country on a regular basis.
Well this song remind's me so much of the kind of people I used to see and talk to in my town's coffee house. Im freind's with all of them...an i dont know whether it's what the song's lyric's are about or just the way Haggard talk's...But it really puts a smile on my face. I agree with OpinionHead too, this has working class writen all over it...And Good Ol' Boyism
before everyone gets all nostalgic about small town america, let's get this outta the way:
Merle said about the song, "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?"
also i was raised in muskogee and it's nothing like the song.
@sun_giant I doubt the veracity of that quotation. I've read other things Merle Haggard said about this song and this does not correspond to it. Some journalist managed to cajole a response from Haggard that said it was a "parody," which used to be on the wikipedia page now, but I don't see it any longer. It was never accurate. Check out the wikipedia page now (2023) to get a more realistic view of what he actually thought when he was writing the song. It was not a joke.
Personally I find this song insulting. I have lived in Muskogee most of my life, I was even born here, and have heard people from other areas associate me with this song just because of where I am from.
This song is offensive.
Yeah! And Your name is Sue. ;-)
Also Okie is a derogatory term, learn your history.