Irma Jackson

"Irma Jackson" is a song by Bakersfield, California-based outlaw country artist Merle Haggard, released on his 1972 album Let Me Tell You About a Song. The song, which was about the then-controversial topic of an interracial romance, was actually written several years prior to 1972, but not released at first because Capitol Records thought it would hurt Haggard's image at the time.[1] Fellow country singer Tony Booth recorded a cover version of "Irma Jackson" in 1970, which was released as his first single for MGM Records. Booth's version of the song charted at #67 on the Hot Country Songs chart.

Musical structure

"Irma Jackson" is in the key of C major and features an AABAB musical structure, with the first two verses played back-to-back, then a chorus, then the third verse, and finally another chorus. The song's running time is 2 minutes and 56 seconds.

The song's guitar chords are C-G7-C in the verses, and F-G7-C in the choruses.[2]

Lyrics

In the song, the narrator expresses his love for his sweetheart Irma Jackson, but also acknowledges that she "can't be mine" because "there's no way the world will understand that love is colorblind". He also points out that no one cared when the two of them were childhood friends, but now that they are grown up, the world "draws a line" and won't let them be together because they are of different races. Eventually, Irma herself decides to leave the narrator, but he proclaims that he will always love her "'till I die".[3]

Reception

According to American Songwriter, "some conservatives who had flocked to 'Okie' were shocked by 'Irma Jackson', Haggard's pro-tolerance take on interracial romance", but Haggard was "unfazed" by this. Haggard said that he and Johnny Cash both believed strongly in freedom of speech. Haggard had earlier recorded a cover of "Go Home", a song by Tommy Collins with a similar theme.[4]

gollark: Oh, and as an extension to the third thing, if you already have some sort of vast surveillance apparatus, even if you trust the government of *now*, a worse government could come along and use it later for... totalitarian things.
gollark: For example:- the average person probably does *some* sort of illegal/shameful/bad/whatever stuff, and if some organization has information on that it can use it against people it wants to discredit (basically, information leads to power, so information asymmetry leads to power asymmetry). This can happen if you decide to be an activist or something much later, even- having lots of data on you means you can be manipulated more easily (see, partly, targeted advertising, except that actually seems to mostly be poorly targeted)- having a government be more effective at detecting minor crimes (which reduced privacy could allow for) might *not* actually be a good thing, as some crimes (drug use, I guess?) are kind of stupid and at least somewhat tolerable because they *can't* be entirely enforced practically
gollark: No, it probably isn't your fault, it must have been dropped from my brain stack while I was writing the rest.
gollark: ... I forgot one of them, hold on while I try and reremember it.
gollark: That's probably one of them. I'm writing.

References
  1. "Merle Haggard Biography". Retrieved May 6, 2010.
  2. "Irma Jackson Chords". Retrieved May 6, 2010.
  3. "Irma Jackson lyrics". Archived from the original on June 14, 2011. Retrieved May 6, 2010.
  4. "Merle Haggard: As He Is (Part 3)". Retrieved May 6, 2010.
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