Here’s to the late, great Merle Haggard.
Miranda Lambert tipped her cap to the country icon with a gorgeous front porch cover of his 1980 single “The Way I Am.”
Though it never reached the #1 spot on the country charts, it was originally written by Sonny Throckmorton and was also the title track on Merle’s subsequent 1980 record.
The song peaked at #2 on the US Billboard Country Songs chart the year it was released… but it’s a country classic nonetheless, and one of my favorite Merle Haggard songs, too.
Miranda has been known to cover it at her live shows here and there over the years, but there’s something about the beautiful fall setting and front porch nostalgia here that I can’t get enough of.
I’ve always felt like Miranda’s twangy, pure country vocals are vastly underrated, and she sounds absolutely perfect on this song and it comes through so beautifully with this stripped-back arrangement:
“Fall at the farm. Favorite song. Favorite porch.”
I would not be mad at a studio version of this one day…
And of course, The Hag’s timeless original:
