“Kern River” by Merle Haggard

Locals call it the Killer Kern. The Kern River, nestled in the southern Sierra Nevada mountains northeast of Bakersfield, California, takes lives every year. A warning sign at the mouth of Kern Canyon reads: “Danger. Stay Out. Stay Alive” and tallies the number of lives the river has taken since 1968. As of May 2020, the number was 307. In fact, the river was named in 1845 by U.S. Senator John C. Fremont in honor of Edward M. Kern, who, as the story goes, nearly drowned in the turbulent waters.

Legendary country guitar player Merle Haggard’s tune “Kern River” tells the fictitious tale of the singer’s girlfriend drowning in the Kern. Released in July 1985 as the only single and the title track from his album Kern River, the song is written from the perspective of an old man looking back on his life and reflecting on the Kern River of his youth. “I’ll never swim Kern River again” goes the refrain. “It was there I first met her / It was there that I lost my best friend.”

The Kern River
Credit: sierranevadageotourism.com

Merle Haggard was part of the contingent of country guitar players, along with Buck Owens, who created the subgenre of country music known as the “Bakersfield Sound” — a mix of twangy guitars, drums, fiddle and steel guitars. Bakersfield, a charter city in Kern County, California, is universally recognized as the “Country Music Capital of The West.”

Haggard was born in Oildale, California, a town 3.5 miles northwest of Bakersfield, during the Great Depression. After the death of his father, Haggard’s childhood was troubled, and he was incarcerated several times while growing up. After being released from San Quentin State Prison in 1960, Haggard launched a successful career as a country artist, with eight No. 1 hits on the U.S. country charts.

In 2008, Emmylou Harris recorded a version of “Kern River” that appears on her album “All I Intended to Be.” Harris, a die-hard fan of Merle Haggard, said of the songwriter:

“If you had to pick one artist to represent country music and send it into outer space to let people out there in other galaxies know what you mean by country music, I think you could drop a needle on anything Merle has ever done and get a pretty good representation.”