I’m a Lonesome Fugitive

Lock him back up.

One of my learning from this project has been that I don't mind a bit of outlaw country. I think Merle Haggard really hit his straps a few albums after this (and we miss the chance to grapple with Merle's complicated politics). But this is a pretty tight album.

Guess I'm more of a Cash girl. The man-on-the-run theme is a bit wearing.

Nursing home music

This feels like the link between traditional country and western and Sweetheart of the Rodeo, an album which I can't get into either, despite loving the Byrds output up to that point. Therefore it must be because I do not actually like country and western. This album did absolutely nothing for me, and seems an odd inclusion amongst the titans of 1967.

Oh man, I wish the band would stretch out..but country radio wouldn't have played it if they did. Despite the restraint, it is still a decent record, because the band is tight and Merle is Merle. Not too many great country albums from this time..singles were the thing. 12 Songs in 31 minutes. Very listenable in that way.

Not my preferred style of country, but it's not the worst and overall it was mostly just in the background.

Finnnne

Is this Temu Johnny Cash?

Call the national guard then. 5/5

some guy singing about being a gangster (and crying about it) and women (and crying about it).

Did not finish. Only got thru First 2 songs. Just not something I can listen to.

Terrible. This album checks off all the negative stereotypes of country music. Simple and predictable, with songs about killing your woman and drinking too much. His voice was not bad but not good either.

Yes. No. Maybe.

Knew exactly what I was going to get from the title and the artwork. Not the worst country I've ever heard, nothing wrong with it particularly for what it is, but that's damning with faint praise as I can't stand what it is.

I have to admit I had Merle Haggard all wrong. His style of shiny Nashville country is actually pretty good, in the same way I enjoyed Loretta Lynn’s offering from before. 60s country is my thing I guess, though it can get a bit twangy. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Echte country & western muziek. Prima te luisteren, maar klinkt op een gegeven moment ook voldoende.

Best Track - "Mixed Up Mess Of A Heart"

yeah, there's a reason this is on here. its still great. for important personal reasons, "if we make it through december" will remain my favorite merle album, but that's not a sleight at all against this brilliant gem

goddamn Merle Haggard is so good at singing.

As someone else has said in a review, I don’t hate country, I hate modern country. This, Marty Robbins, Waylon Jennings, Jonny Cash - that I can get with, and this is no different. Solid album, and if you don’t like one song you only have to wait two minutes before another one comes along.

exactly what i expected from a country album

This Classic Country album feels like sitting through a slow conversation at a roadside diner while a small country band quietly decorates the background. Merle Haggard delivers his stories in a measured, almost spoken style, with little variation in pace or vocal expression. The steel guitar twangs, the piano adds a few flourishes, and the rhythm section keeps time, but the instruments feel more ornamental than musically engaging, as if they are simply filling the gaps between the words. The songs rarely build much momentum, and the steady succession of spoken-sounding verses and familiar country arrangements leaves me struggling to stay interested. Rather than drawing me into the stories, the music fades into the background, and I find myself waiting for something to happen that never quite does.

I said this on the Dwight Yoakam album. This generator has made me realize that I do not actually hate country. I just find the people who typically listen to country to be insufferable.

Cookie-cutter country from the era, great if that’s your preferred style of country. I was expecting a bit more of an outlaw edge from the album title, but there wasn’t any to be found. Fine enough in the background, but you can find better stuff.

Nope, no ta, nadda, neh tack, not for me!

I'm not a huge Merle fan, lets see how this goes. Not well, I like some old country and bluegrass, but not feeling this. He does a good job being a singer/songwriter and the themes are dark and somewhat more interesting than the normal country\POP pablum. Not enough to make me want to re-listen. The lyrical quality actually goes down as it gets closer to the end of the album. Yuck

The only flaw with this album is that it's too short. I listened to it twice in a row because I felt once wasn't enough. This has to be one of the most perfect, flawless country albums I've ever heard. 5 stars.

Good Merle is great country

I actually listened to a different Merle Haggard album because I couldn't remember the title (Ramblin' Fever) and I was like, hey this starts out ok, but it kinda goes into also-ran songs that are fine but forgettable and it fills out the requisite 30 minutes because that's just how albums were those days. Anyway, that review also works for the album I was actually supposed to listen to. It's nice to hear some stuff that got referenced later (if Sturgill Simpson does not admit to stealing liberally from Merle I'd be shocked) but really it's just This Kind Of Thing for half an hour. There are certainly worse ways to spend that time, many on this list.

Cute inoffensive old man country

Favorites were the first and last song of the album. Love when an album ends on a really good song

Bom country, mas meio parecido as músicas

Favorite Track: Whatever Happened To Me

Shit

Not my music

a couple really good tunes, gave it three listens, but it just doesnt do it for me

Solid country album, though nothing stood out besides the title track.

About as generic as it gets.

4/10

Hearing this album on the last day of the weekend gives me the Sunday scaries. The relaxing sound makes me not look forward to the work week 🫣. Like I don't have enough time to fully relax and dive into the vibes here. This sounds like a combination between rock and roll and country. There's that honky-tonk piano, steel guitar twang, and simple percussion––the cornerstones of the genre. It's a whiplash from the recent EDM music I've been getting into, so that definitely affects my rating. It's also very cohesive and can be one-track in terms of its sound despite going from ballads to energetic ditties. I like my country modern with more strings, rock sounds, and pop verse-chorus structures (2.5).

Ok

Never been much of a Country guy, and this isn't changing that. Although I'm still optimistic that something may come and change my mind.

It would be hard to think of a more formulaic country title than 'I'm A Lonesome Fugitive' and it would be hard to put together a more unenterprising and formulaic set of country songs than these 😐

1001 albums: i honestly don’t understand the low score with this one because i really enjoyed myself with this one as well it might not be super groundbreaking or appear to not be anything special, I think the unique aspect of this album comes from how honest it is about merles (an ex convict) experiences of crime and heartbreak which feel a lot more genuine than a lot of other country music as he actually lived the outlaw life he portrays to some extent.

garbage

Vrolijk! Ideaal voor een road trip in Amerika!

Super aangenaam, heb 2x geluisterd

Merle haggard is an underrated songwriter. Mama tried, okie from Muskogee etc rank with the very best of American songwriting. He knew the struggles of the working people. This is a good album but I’d have picked others. The strangers though are one of the best bands to come out of the period. Roy Nichols in particular.

At first so ODD, true languid Country would have been the section of a record shop I'd have skipped fastest. This is a quick grower. The true despondence and chord bending voice (whatever that plaintiff warble is it always cracks me up, I know if shouldn't, but I assume this is all semi-SATIRE sung with a knowing twinkle? what that it were, wherewithal and whatnow, it works better for me this way right now. Subliminal stuff. Im feeling generous. 5

One of the things I'm blown away by with the c and w artists Dimery is listing, is just how many records these artists made in the sixties. They really earned their dues before they hit it in the early 70's etc. This is a bit of a revelation, similar to that Ray Price record a while ago. They make this in Hollywood hence the Wrecking Crew. But rather than overwhelm The Strangers they complement them. Which leads us to this very Bakersfield sound, and that's a good thing. Within the themes around Merle's inadequacies it swings, it lilts and is devoid of the portentous bombast that came with his later stuff. Great too to hear Glen Campbell not only adding his great playing but his typically brilliant harmony vocals, that voice man, in any context any time. and James Burton's Tele, goes so nicely with Ralph's lap steel. Someone Told My Baby is just perfect, a great contender for needing to be played backwards so she comes back with the dog. This is really good deadbeats, more than artifact. Interesting footnote: that pyscho Jim Gordon plays on this, incredible to think he's three or four years away from doing the coda to Layla, via ripping off Rita Coolidge and then all the other madness of course. He's a solid contender for the Brian Eno Memorial I Pop Up Everywhere in Rock and Roll Award...

A solid outlaw country album. 3/5.

more cowboy jams, you know this is in my blood!! i am practically hardwired to enjoy this i betcha my dad likes/would like this, seems right up his alley, like when one of these songs starts playing and he goes "ooooooh look out now!" and cranks the system, good times

On se vaan hemmetin huonoa musaa. Country nimittäin. 1/5

Don't like country

3.5. But gotta go it’s just fine.

I just hope they never give me honky tonk shit again

Not a bad outlaw country album.

Ah, your classic type of country, the quintessential country sound with that super twangy guitar sound which I do love. However writing-wise, there is nothing super special about it even though I do loke some work from Mr. Haggard. All in all, this is pretty alright, probably another 3 stars.

Worked with Merle back in 2017 and he sounded NOTHING like this lmao. Felt the album was mostly the same energy the whole time, ol’ country roots vibes. Wished they changed it up slightly but was still a decent listen. Maybe he expands more as he gets older

#105 I don't care if it's unpopular, I love Country music. Merle Haggard is one of the legends of the genre, it's nice to give one of his albums a proper listen here. Highlights: I'm A Lonesome Fugitive, All Of Me Belongs To You, My Rough And Rowdy Ways

Hag!

Literally just queue music for the Cars ride at Disneyland. Everything sounds pretty indistinguishable to me despite the nice vocals. I see why others would like this but it’s really not for me, just put a little but more energy and speed into it and that’d do you so many favors!

Honestly really enjoyed this, but I have a soft spot for this kind of music. Almost took away the song about drinking. It's a good album the whole way through. 3.75 or 4 stars

Bad ass country. Hard not to like this. Maybe a little one dimensional musically but this man is telling stories of despair. Keeping it real when at time there wasn’t a ton of that happening. Props to ole Merle.

I want a movie of this man's life! I'm onboard with this honky-tonk country. Enough blues and rock in there too. And Merle's stories are solid. A good album.

I didn't manage to engage very well with this. Reading about it, the premise seemed good, I think musically I just find this style too repetitive, with very little distinctive sound between tracks. Then it just becomes one long blur.

There’s a certain charm to this record that I enjoyed and Haggard’s voice is pretty good. Songs weren’t amazing and there were a lot of recurring themes in here, but the band played well and it was still a solid album. If You Want To Be My Woman was my favorite track on this collection.

Meh. Do not care for country music. But I do respect old fashioned country at least.

Never heard of this album or artist so don’t know what to expect. This is so bad to me I don’t like this time of music. Super repetitive and boring.

Another mildly surprising album, as I wasn't expecting much from it. Very punchy and catchy. I wouldn't have the desire to search it out again, but if it came on the radio on a playlist I wouldn't have to turn it off. I'll give it 3 stars based on that.

I love country music! this is...not great. like I'm supposed to believe that Merle was an outlaw and a fugitive? this album sounds like he's never had mud on his boots. even the cover art of him hanging off a shipping container with a shiny belt buckle and his clothes all tailored and pressed just makes me laugh we have a saying around these parts that applies to this album: big hat no cattle

Another carbon copy C&W album. Not terrible, just nothing new

I'm so glad all these old country albums are so short, I really don't know how much more I could handle. They are all just exactly the same, some guy singing about being an outlaw or whatever like it's the wild west, in some really sad voice like he didn't bring it upon himself. This one is no different from the many others I've heard, just equally as boring and forgettable.

Yet more country-by-numbers. Always makes me laugh that the Americans in the reviews berate the number of ‘obscure’ British rock and indie bands on the list while completely glossing over the number of formulaic tedious repetitive country albums have made the cut.

Meh

60

Maybe it's just the generation gap talking (or the production) but for me there's always been something preternaturally *old* about Merle Haggard. For as good as his tunesmith's ear is, his songs often tend towards the weighty - all prison and hellfire and disappointing his mother. It would be easy to mistake all that consequence for perspective, and yet Haggard doesn't seem to have learned the right lessons. On the title track he blames his peripatetic life on his pursuers despite acknowledging that he "raised a lot of Cain" and therefore presumably deserves his plight. That's the key here: the assumed maturity is a mask. Haggard knows he ought to be figuring life out and building something stable for himself but for reasons he doesn't understand he simply *can't*, he can't make himself. The "settle" in "settle down" is too much for him ("My Rough and Rowdy Ways"). "Drink Up and Be Somebody" finds himself seeking liquid courage to avoid confronting the truth that he really *does* care but isn't willing to commit. Coming as it does from Haggard's own pen (as do most of these songs) it's as close as anything here to a confession. And Roy Nichols' sublime guitar leads throughout this great album are as good an explanation as any for why Haggard can't give up the hard life he's chosen.

Makes me drink 3.44

Not a big country fan but was an interesting story album

I feel like I understand Clint McElroy a bit better now. Not my usual but nice. The closing track was a bop.

I think I would’ve thought higher listening in a more country music context. I say 3.5 stars, so I’ll round it to 4.

Hey guys what if we made Dolly Parton a guy and worse? Favorite: house of memories I guess

Just very easy to listen to 🐴

I didn’t hate it, very representative of its time. Nothing I would listen to again but can appreciate it

mid with a side of nothing

Sometimes I like to think I've mellowed out a little bit on this journey and, as a result, I'm more receptive to genres I might not have liked initially. Other times the generator gives me stuff like this and I don't really know what to think. This was some really bland, run-of-the-mill country music.

It's not Mama Tried, but Merle is still better than literally 99% of all modern country.

I don’t like this stuff, but it wasn’t as Haggard as I expected

If you play this backwards, you get to hear The Lonely Horseman by The Aquabats

Endearing and simple, but also energetic and (passionate/emotional?) too. When I saw I had a country album to listen to, I wasn't excited, honestly. However, this was pleasant enough to have on in the background. I'm a Lonesome Fugitive wasn't remarkable by any means - maybe it is just a hallmark of the classic country tropes of it's era, which is what leaves it to be unmemorable. Favorite Tracks: Life in Prison I'm a Lonesome Fugitive Whatever Happened to Me

A Fugitive Must Be A Rolling Stone 1001 Albums Generator 351 (9/16/2026) Fun, but unremarkable honky tonk. It has moments I love, like the root-tootin good time of If You Want To Be My Woman and I'm A Lonesome Fugitive, but there's a lot that I could do without. 3/5. Favs: I'm A Lonesome Fuigitive Life In Prison If You Want To Be My Woman Least Fav: Mary's Mine

Very good outlaw country. Amazing that Haggard was in the audience as a convict when Johnny Cash played San Quintin.

They're all good ol' toe tappers. Yeehaw. Another one for yer gran.

I listen to everything on this with an open mind and I listen to every minute, even when I hate it, so I’m being fair. That being said, I can’t stand country music, it all sounds the same, the music is the same, the lyrical themes are the same. It’s annoying and it’s boring. He has a good voice and it’s short, which pulls it up from 1/5 but only just.

I feel like I want to host an American themed night and have this in the background.

So very cool

This was good. Snappy and interesting. Don’t listen to a lot of the old country but this was a good one.

estaba muy en mood de escuchar country y me decepcionó, solo te puede gustar si sos yankee. Salvo el primer tema nomas 4/10

Previously unknown. Kinda boring but still nice.