Misery and Gin Lyrics
Jukebox records don't play those wedding bells.
Looking at the world through the bottom of a glass
All I see is a man who's fading fast.
Tonight I need that woman again
What I'd give for my baby to just walk in.
Sit down beside me and say its alright
Take me home and make sweet love to me tonight.
But here I am again mixing misery and gin
Sitting with all my friends and talking to myself.
I look like I'm having a good time but any fool can tell
That this honkytonk heaven really makes you feel.... like hell.
We start talking about what we wanna forget.
Her life story and mine are the same
We both lost someone and only have ourselves to blame.
The first four lines of this song say it all. We've all been there, trying to forget someone by drowning their memory, but alcohol only makes the memories come back to haunt us. You can't find comfort and understanding in a bar, underneath the "neon lights." But yet, we always go there for answers. Merle Haggard - "Poet of the Common Man" - has got to be one of the top 5 best songwriters of ALL time. And yet, there were only a few posts/comments about his songs when I made this post. What's wrong with this world?!
This is the best song ever written. Everyone has been in that spot, drinking themselves retarded. Then finding someone else who is having a miserable time but neither of you are ready to move on but its nice to share your misery with someone else
This may be the most heartbreaking song Merle Haggard ever wrote, and that's really saying something. What I like most about it is, unlike nearly all sad country songs about lost love, this one seems to imply that the narrator is the one who ended the relationship. Sometimes it's just as devastating when you're the one doing the leaving -- and afterward, when you're drowning your sorrows every night and "fading fast," you "only have [yourself] to blame."
"Tonight I need that woman again" -- "again" is the key word because he decided at some point he didn't need her. And "What I'd give for my baby to just walk in" is his admission that he was wrong, and he knows it's over and he wishes it wasn't.
By the way, the live version from Anaheim Stadium in 1981 is fantastic -- it was the first song he played at the concert in front of tens of thousands of fans.