S&P Records
2005
Going Where The Lonely Go / That's The Way Love Goes
About This Album
When Merle Haggard entered Britannia Studios in 1981 with producer Lewis Talley, he recorded a boatload of tracks in two days. The first batch ended up on his Epic debut, Big City. The second set of cuts made up the lion's share of his finest moment for the label, in 1982, entitled Going Where the Lonely Go. In fact, all but two songs came from those sessions. For whatever reason, it and the subsequent disc, 1983's fine That's the Way Love Goes, had never been issued on CD before this fabulous two-fer. Haggard wrote over half of Going Where the Lonely Go, the rest comprised of two songs by his then wife, Leona Williams (whom he was splitting with at the time -- hence the overall downer tone of the set); a co-write with Little Jimmy Dickens; Willie Nelson's "Half a Man"; and Jimmy Davis' "Nobody's Darlin' But Mine." But it's Haggard's songs that make this a stellar outing. The title track is a piece of pure country poetry. Over a painfully slow 4/4 time signature fronted by a bassline, adorned by a three-chord pattern, and filled by slippery piano lines, Haggard sings, "Rollin' with the flow/Goin' where the lonely go/Anywhere the lights are low/Goin' where the lonely go/Makin' up things to do/Not runnin' in all directions tryin' to find you/I'm just rollin' with the flow/Goin' where the lonely go.
Track List (try tracks 2,3,4,5,6,8,9,10,11,16 and 17)

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