In "Mama Tried", Haggard focuses on the pain and suffering he caused his own mother by being incarcerated in 1957 in San Quentin.[3] Haggard ultimately served three years on a robbery conviction.
However, the song is not literally autobiographical, as many country music historians point out. While writer Bill Malone's assessment of the song is in agreement with Ace Collins' (referring to his own experiences that saw him sentenced to prison), Malone points out that Haggard never was sentenced to "life without parole," as the protagonist in the song was.[4] Still, the song's lyrics, and the protagonist's experiences, are heavily influenced by Haggard's early life.
Additionally, Allmusic writer Bill Janovitz notes Haggard's lyrics are sympathetic to his mother, who tried everything in her power to rehabilitate her rebel son. But, as the lyrics point out, "In spite of all my Sunday learning, towards the bad I kept on turning/'Til mama couldn't hold me anymore"; thus the observation, "I turned 21 in prison doin' life without parole."[4]
Malone notes that "Mama Tried" "recalls for us the 1960s Californiahonky tonk and the Merle Haggard sound of those years, featuring the searing electric guitar of Roy Nichols."[4]
Chart performance
Released in July 1968, Mama Tried was Merle Haggard and The Strangers fifth No. 1 song on the Billboard magazineHot Country Singles chart in August. The song spent four weeks at No. 1, and was his biggest hit to that time.
In the 5th-season finale of Gilmore Girls ("A House is Not a Home," 2005), Stars Hollow's "Town Troubadour" is singing the song on a street corner soon after Lorelai brings Rory home from a night in jail.
In the 2008 film The Strangers, the song is used to build tension whilst also referencing the potential poor upbringing of the films' antagonists. Haggard's own band was also called The Strangers.
In the 2nd series of the 2008 UK television series Survivors, the song is often played and sung by truck driver Billy Stringer.
In 2010, the song was sung as a plot element by Nate Moretta (Kevin Alejandro) to a young incarcerated Hispanic gang member on TNT's Southland season 2 premiere "Phase Three".
In April 2018 it was used in Fear the Walking Dead Season 4 episode 2, and again in November 2023 in the series finale.
Joan Baez covered the song in 1969, along with another Haggard song, "Sing Me Back Home", though her versions of both songs went unreleased until they were included on her 1993 boxed set Rare, Live & Classic; they later appeared on the 2005 reissue of her 1970 album (I Live) One Day at a Time.
David Allan Coe covered it. It appears on several compilation albums including "Truckin' Outlaw" and "20 Greatest Hits".
The song has been a live standard for Texas alt-country band Old 97's for their entire career, and was recorded for their debut album.
American Oi! band Forced Reality covered the song. It appears on their Unheard, Unreleased, and Under the Boot compilation.
The Seldom Scene covered the song on their 2007 Sugar Hill Records release, SCENEchronized.
American bluegrass band Greensky Bluegrass have played the song many times at live shows.
^Collis, Ace, The Stories Behind Country Music's All-Time Greatest: 100 Songs, Berkley Publishing Group, New York, 1996, p. 198-200. (ISBN1-57297-072-3)
