"Irma Jackson" is a song by Bakersfield, California

Bakersfield, California

Bakersfield is a city near the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley in Kern County, California. It is roughly equidistant between Fresno and Los Angeles, to the north and south respectively....

-based outlaw country

Outlaw country

Outlaw country is a subgenre of country music, most popular during the late 1960s and the 1970s , sometimes referred to as the outlaw movement or simply outlaw music...

 artist Merle Haggard

Merle Haggard

Merle Ronald Haggard is an American country music singer, guitarist, fiddler, instrumentalist, and songwriter. Along with Buck Owens, Haggard and his band The Strangers helped create the Bakersfield sound, which is characterized by the unique twang of Fender Telecaster guitars, vocal harmonies,...

, released on his 1972

1972 in music

-Events:*January 17 – Highway 51 South in Memphis, Tennessee is renamed "Elvis Presley Boulevard"*January 20 – The début of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon at The Dome, Brighton, is halted by technical difficulties,...

 album Let Me Tell You About a Song

Let Me Tell You About a Song

Let Me Tell You About a Song is an album by American country singer Merle Haggard, released in 1972. It reached #7 on the Billboard Country album chart and #166 on the Pop album chart...

. 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

Capitol Records

Capitol Records is a major United States based record label, formerly located in Los Angeles, but operating in New York City as part of Capitol Music Group. Its former headquarters building, the Capitol Tower, is a major landmark near the corner of Hollywood and Vine...

 thought it would hurt Haggard's image at the time. Fellow country singer Tony Booth

Tony Booth (musician)

Tony Booth is an American country music singer who participated in Buck Owens' "Bakersfield sound" revolution.-Early years:...

 recorded a cover version of "Irma Jackson" in 1970, which was released as his first single for MGM Records

MGM Records

MGM Records was a record label started by the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film studio in 1946, for the purpose of releasing soundtrack albums of their musical films. Later it became a pop label, lasting into the 1970s...

. Booth's version of the song charted at #67 on the Hot Country Songs

Hot Country Songs

Hot Country Songs is a chart published weekly by Billboard magazine in the United States.This 60-position chart lists the most popular country music songs, calculated weekly mostly by airplay and occasionally commercial sales...

 chart.

Musical structure

"Irma Jackson" is in the key of C major

C major

C major is a musical major scale based on C, with pitches C, D, E, F, G, A, and B. Its key signature has no flats/sharps.Its relative minor is A minor, and its parallel minor is C minor....

 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.

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".

Reception

According to American Songwriter, "some conservatives who had flocked to 'Okie

Okie from Muskogee (song)

"Okie from Muskogee" is an American country music song performed by its co-writer, Merle Haggard. Released in September 1969, the song became one of the most famous of his career.-Background:...

' 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

Johnny Cash

John R. "Johnny" Cash was an American singer-songwriter, actor, and author, who has been called one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century...

 both believed strongly in freedom of speech

Freedom of speech

Freedom of speech is the freedom to speak freely without censorship. The term freedom of expression is sometimes used synonymously, but includes any act of seeking, receiving and imparting information or ideas, regardless of the medium used...

. Haggard had earlier recorded a cover of "Go Home", a song by Tommy Collins

Tommy Collins (country music)

Leonard Raymond Sipes , better known as Tommy Collins, was an American country music singer and songwriter....

with a similar theme.