I'd like to start by saying this was a very difficult undertaking. This list changed constantly everyday for five days and I finally just printed one. It was almost impossible to pick 10 songs, much less put them in order from least to most favorite. These songs could all be in the No. 1 spot as far as I'm concerned, but I somehow came up with this order. I know I'm probably leaving something out that will come to me later, but this could take forever and I've got shows to do. I tried to pick songs that I loved, for whatever reason, before I became inundated with a whole lot of musical knowledge that probably means nothing. When you do this for a living, things sometimes seem to get a little blurry. I believe that it is very easy to overthink music. I really tried to put songs on this list that I fell in love with before I had time to think about it. Some of them were songs that I connected with as a child before I even knew why I liked them. In my humble estimation, that's the way it should be. All one really needs to know about music is: I like it or I don't. There is no formula and there are no boundaries -- and that's what I love about making music.
This is one of my favorite Merle Haggard songs. This song demonstrates his ability to write about real life in such a way that it draws any listener into his world. You're either very intrigued by the story line or you become the guy in the song.
