According to Rolling Stone, Merle Haggard grew up in Oildale, California (just outside the famed Bakersfield) in a railroad boxcar that his dad, James, turned into a mobile home for the family of five. Haggard described his father as gentle, and putting people at ease, whereas his mother, Flossie, was more stoic and serious — as well as a pious member of the conservative Church of Christ. Before falling in love with and marrying Flossie, James had played fiddle in honky-tonk bars, but decided to hang that up when Flossie expressed her opinion that playing that kind of music was for heathens and rebels (per GQ).

To present a united front with his wife, James ostensibly disapproved of playing music too, yet young Merle saw something in his father’s eyes that said differently. “Sometimes I’d toss in bed at night and wonder what it was Daddy wanted out of life,” Haggard said (via Rolling Stone) “I got to thinking that he must have dreams he was letting go by and I knew he had great love for music, but he didn’t seem to work at it much.” When his dad died tragically too soon of a stroke, 9-year-old Merle began rebelling, hopping trains, playing fiddle and guitar, and started on the path to a life in music. Just as his Daddy most likely had wished for himself before giving it all up to lovingly raise his family.