“I’m just a little guitar player and doesn’t anybody but me and the disabled veterans of America care about this and how could this happen?”

This was Merle Haggard in 1989, speaking in response to the United States Supreme Court decision that allowed the burning of the American flag, citing First Amendment rights.

The famous country star and former outlaw got so doggone pissed about it that he wrote a song called “Me and Crippled Soldiers Give a Damn”.

Here’s Merle, who passed away at the age of 79 on Wednesday (his birthday), performing the tune on live television shortly before its controversial release on Curb Records:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nq1eBbqq7k

On his life and death, this from Pitchfork:

Haggard was born in 1937 near Bakersfield, California. His father died when he was young. Throughout his youth, he spent time in juvenile detention centers, and throughout the 1950s, he spent a significant amount of time in jail. (He was an inmate at San Quentin when Johnny Cash performed there.) Haggard’s first top 20 hit, “Sing Me a Sad Song,” was released in 1963. His first No. 1 single was 1965’s “I’m a Lonesome Fugitive.” By 1967, Haggard was a huge country star with 37 songs charting in the Top 10 that year. His 1969 single “Okie From Muskogee” went No. 1 and stirred controversy for its anti-hippie sentiments. He would go on to have 40 No. 1 country singles. Classic Haggard songs include “Mama Tried,” “The Bottle Let Me Down,” and “The Fightin’ Side of Me.”

Since the 1960s, Haggard has been a fixture in country music, recording and performing consistently over the years. Along with his band the Strangers, he’s considered one of the most instrumental artists in establishing the Bakersfield sound. His last album was 2015’s Django and Jimmie—a collaboration with his longtime friend Willie Nelson. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1994. He received the Kennedy Center Honor in 2010, and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2006.

Here’s Haggard’s entire presentation at the Kennedy Center in Washington, six years ago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-f1d1JUxuno

From a prison inmate to singing at the White House in just a matter of years. Pretty incredible …