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.
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.