This week Jim Adams has prompted us with choosing songs pertaining to Begin | End | Finish | Start for this week’s Song Lyric Sunday. This week I pay homage to the late great Merle Haggard with “Today, I Started Loving You Again”.
I’ve written about Merle Haggard and Bonnie Owens in a past blog. Merle and Bonnie were married at the time this song was released in 1968 and they wrote several songs together. She was the ex-wife to Country Music legend Buck Owens and Merle’s 2nd wife. Here is a link to more on them from a post back in August.
No artist has ever written with conviction as Merle Haggard. His songs project his feelings at the time they were written. The lyrics to “Today, I Started Loving You Again” was written as a love at first site type of ballad. The words penned show a greater emotional turmoil of a broken heart.
Listen carefully and you will feel the pedal steel guitar and all the soul it brings into this song. Wait for it! There is just nothing more country than that instrument…well, maybe a fiddle.
SONG FACTS
- Written by Merle Haggard & Bonnie Owens
- First recorded as a B-side to Merle’s #1 hit “The Legend of Bonnie and Clyde”.
- It was on his 1968 album The Legend of Bonnie and Clyde.
- It never charted as a single for Merle. Numerous artists covered the song and had it land on the charts. See full list.
- The best it charted as a single was in 1976 with Bobby Bland’s version where it peaked to #3 on the US Billboard Bubbling Under-Hot Singles.
- Charted #6 on the U.S. Billboard Country Albums.
“Today, I Started Loving You Again”
Today I started loving you again I'm right back where I've really always been I got over you just long enough to let my heartache mend Then today, I started loving you again What a fool I was to think I could get by With only these few millions tears I cry I should have known the worst was yet to come And that crying time for me had just begun Cause today I started loving you again I'm right back where I've really always been I got over you just long enough to let my heartache mend Then today I started loving you again Well today I started loving you again I'm right back where I've really always been I got over you just long enough to let my heartache mend Then today I started loving you again Then today I started loving you again Source: Musixmatch Songwriters: Merle Haggard / Bonnie Owens Today I Started Loving You Again lyrics © Sony/atv Tree Publishing, Sony Atv Tree Publishing, Sony Atv Music Publishing France
Our Eyes Open 
Comments
22 responses to “Song Lyric Sunday – “Today I Started Loving You Again” by Merle Haggard”
Singer and song new to me, thank you for the introduction 💜
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You are welcome! I will do a lot of Merle Haggard. He is one of my all time favorites! 🙂
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I can see why 💜
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😉💜
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💜
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Thanks to a 4/6/16 (the day Merle died) Los Angeles Times article written by Robert Hilburn, we’ve the following additional insight–based on a previous interview with Merle–his thoughts surrounding this moving song:
“At one point in the late ‘60s, Haggard had spent three months on tour, a young country star who was so hot that he’d end up with 65 consecutive Top 10 singles.
“He was so drained he lost track of everything around him — even his wife at the time, Bonnie Owens, a singer with his band. All of his energy went into getting to the next town and through the next show.
“Back in California on the first day of a week’s break, a tired Haggard looked at his wife and felt a warmth he had lost along the road. “It’s like today I started loving you again,” he told her tenderly.
“Owens, who knew a good song title when she heard it, urged him to write the thought down. Sure enough, Haggard, recalling the line a few days later, wrote “I Started Loving You Again” in 10 minutes on hotel stationery.”
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That is so perfect! 🙂
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I love the pedal steel guitar and this is a great song Lisa. I always loved the Merle haggard songs that the Grateful Dead played like Mama Tried and Sing Me Back Home.
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I love it too. It is my favorite sounding instrument for country music. You probably realize that the French horn is my favorite sounding instrument for classical music. Broad spectrum. 😂
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C&C (Country and Classical), way to go, Lisa!!!
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LOL! Woohoo! I’m a weird connoisseur of music. 🙂
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Lovely song.. had not heard it before..
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Thanks Lisa. Makes me happy to share music that I grew up with & bonus when it’s new to others. 😊
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Love this song. thanks for sharing it.
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Glad you love it. I do too! 🙂
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That man could write a tune that would jerk your heart out and stomp it into jam. Where doe’s one start? Mama Tried, Sing Me Back Home Again, and all the others. My wife and I were in Ruidoso some years ago, most likely the year Merle passed. He was playing at one of the Casinos and we wanted to see him. Of course, no tickets available, and that was our loss.
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Yes he certainly could! I had a chance to go see him a couple of years before he passed and didn’t go. My loss! Silver Wing is my favorite song of his, but all of them take you somewhere deep in your soul. 🙂
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I love this Lisa. I felt like I was back sitting in a bar in Texas listening to this and the dance floor was full of couples going around and all you can see is a sea of cowboy hats. ☺️
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YES!!!! Fort Worth Stockyards…tight ass Wranglers (us and the guys), cowboy boots and absolutely dancing! Honky tonking at its best! 🙂 Awe…the good ole days!
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Yes, I can still see that huge dance floor and all those white hats going around ☺️
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Oh yeah! 🤠
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Very good song! Hadn’t heard it in a long time. 🙂
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