Haggard Like Never Before
What does it mean that the man who famously took on the antiwar movement in 1970 with what many interpreted as the pro-Nixon "The Fightin’ Side of Me" reemerges more than three decades later with a devastatingly pensive antiwar song for the G.W. Bush era? Listening to "That’s the News," Hag’s latest blue-collar protest song, prompts one to conclude that the country giant hasn’t changed much at all; you’d still be on his fightin’ side if you attacked the troops, but their leaders are fair game. "Suddenly the cost of war is out of sight/ Lost a lot of heroes in the fight/ Politicians do all the talking/ Soldiers pay the dues/ Suddenly the war is over, that’s the news," he intones, and one is left to wonder what the let’s-kick-butt likes ofToby Keithwould make of the nuanced Hag circa 2003.Like Never Beforeproves 2000’s comeback effortIf I Could Only Flywas no fluke. Showing great care in presenting 10 sparely arranged originals (aWillie Nelsonduet onWoody Guthrie’s"Reno Blues" rounds out the set), Haggard moves easily from honky-tonker to Western swing to ballads with the ease of well-traveled man who may have strayed off the path now and again, but has never lost his bearings.--Steven Stolder