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Roger Miller

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Roger Miller (Music)
"Well, here I sit high, gettin' ideas/Ain't nothin' but a fool could live like this..."

Dang me, dang me
They oughta take a rope and hang me
High from the highest tree
Woman, would you weep for me?
—the chorus of "Dang Me"

Roger Dean Miller (January 2, 1936 – October 25, 1992) was a Country Music Singer-Songwriter, one of the most unique and inventive in the genre's history, and one of the most successful in terms of having crossover hits on the pop chart.

After a downright Dickensian youth—his father died when Roger was just a year old, and his mother sent him to live with an uncle in rural Oklahoma—he joined the US Army during The Korean War, then on the advice of a sergeant moved to Nashville after his discharge. There he worked odd jobs as he tried to break into the music business, and after scoring several big hits as a songwriter, launched a performing career as well. After some sporadic success, he broke through big in 1964 when "Dang Me" topped the country chart and also made the pop Top 10. This set up a remarkable run for the next four years that saw Miller score a second country chart-topper (his invokedSignature Song "King of the Road"), ten total Top 10 country hits, five Top 10 pop hits, and a bunch of Grammys. "Dang Me" established a lot of his trademark musical style: jaunty, good-natured music with witty wordplay and comedic flair, plus some Scatting, but he was also remarkably versatile as a singer and songwriter. He could just as easily slip into a crooning voice, and he could also write lyrics that were either romantic, or even Darker and Edgier, scoring major country hits with songs about marital woes ("Husbands and Wives") and suicide ("One Dyin' and a Buryin' "). He also wasn't afraid to use pop, blues and jazz influences in his music, which arguably makes him something of a predecessor of the Outlaw Country Music movement. His baritone voice, twangy but expressive, was instantly recognizable, and Johnny Cash even considered him the closest country star to himself vocally.

Talented, but notoriously undisciplined, Miller largely stepped away from songwriting by the end of The '60s, partly due to substance abuse issues, but kept recording, and gave future songwriting notables like Kris Kristofferson and Dennis Linde some of their earliest exposure (Miller was the first one to record "Me and Bobby McGee"). He also branched out into both screen acting and voice acting around that time, including probably his most famous credit among mainstream audiences: Alan-a-Dale, the singing rooster who narrated Disney's Robin Hood (1973). (Miller wrote all the songs he performed in the film, including the opening "Whistle Stop", which later underwent Memetic Mutation.) He even did a guest appearance on The Muppet Show. By The '80s his recording career stalled, but he had a surprising resurgence on Broadway, writing the music and lyrics for Big River, a musical adaptation of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which won a Tony for Best Musical and earned Miller a separate Best Score Tony. A lifelong smoker, he died of lung and throat cancer at age 56, but his songs still get heard and are popular choices for cover versions.

No relation to Mission of Burma's guitarist of the same name.

"I'm a man of means by no means, King of the Tropes'':

  • Christmas Songs: "Old Toy Trains", a tender ballad he released in 1967, has become a country Christmas standard.
  • Dead Sparks: "Husbands and Wives"
    Two broken hearts lonely looking like houses
    Where nobody lives
    Two people each havin' so much pride inside
    Neither side forgives
  • Deep South: "South" is a celebration of it, though it's unusual for acknowledging the results of The American Civil War.
    It's the land of the free.
    It lost the only war it ever fought in history.
  • Early-Installment Weirdness:
    • His debut single, "Poor Little John" from 1957, has a heavy Cajun music influence.
    • His first Top 10 country hit, "When Two Worlds Collide" from 1961 (co-written with Bill Anderson), is a crooning countrypolitan ballad much more in line with Eddy Arnold or Jim Reeves, rather than than the more freewheeling music he became famous for.
  • Epic Rocking: His later hits "Vance" and "Me and Bobby McGee" both exceeded four minutes in an era when country songs rarely went much past two-and-a-half.
  • Green-Eyed Monster: The subject of "Do-Wacka-Do", in his typically cockeyed way.
    I hear tell you're doin' well
    Good things have come to you
    I wish I had your happiness
    And you had a do-wacka-do-wacka-do-wacka-do-wacka-do-wacka-do
  • Groupie Brigade: "Do-Wacka-Do"
    I see you goin' down the street in your big Cadillac
    You got girls in the front and got girls in the back
  • The Hermit: "Poor Little John" is about a backwoods type who decides to spend the rest of his life alone after his wife leaves him because "she didn't like the country."
  • Hobos: "King of the Road" is narrated by one, bragging about how he knows all the ins-and-outs to sustain this lifestyle.
  • Homesickness Hymn: "Home"
    I've been a traveler the most of my life
    Never took a home and never took a wife
    Ran away young and decided to roam
    But now I'd like see my mama and my papa back home
  • In the Style of:
    • The 1966 novelty hit "I'm a Nut" by Leroy Pullins closely copied Miller's musical, lyrical and vocal style.
    • George Jones' "I'm a People" from that same year is also a pretty obvious Miller homage.
  • Instrumentals: "Whistle Stop" functionally is one, since it's just him variously whistling and scatting the melody.
  • Least Rhymable Word: "Dang Me"
    They say roses are red and violets are purple
    And sugar's sweet and so is maple surple
  • Magical Seventh Son: Alluded to (and maybe subverted) in "Dang Me"
    I'm the seventh out of seven sons
    My pappy was a pistol, I'm a son of a gun
  • Miniscule Rocking: A number of his hits were under two minutes, including "Dang Me", "Do-Wacka-Do", "You Can't Roller Skate in a Buffalo Herd" and "England Swings". The album track "Boeing Boeing 707" clocks in at a mere 1:17.
  • Obsession Song: "Tomorrow Night in Baltimore", sung by a guy who's become consumed with passion for a burlesque dancer to the point that he goes backstage to "take her".
  • Ode to Intoxication: "Chug-a-Lug", which fondly recalls several childhood brushes with alcohol.
  • Parental Love Song:
    • "Old Toy Trains" is a Christmas Eve lullaby addressed from a father to a son.
      Old toy trains, little toy tracks
      Little boy toys coming from a sack
      Carried by a man dressed in white and red
      Little boy, don't you think it's time you were in bed?
    • "Vance" is a quirky example, narrated by a father talking about his son who nearly died after birth, but overcame his problems and become a soldier when he grew up. The song climaxes with Vance and his father going to a bar for a beer, then the father beaming with pride after Vance punches out a former childhood bully who harasses him at the bar.
  • Self-Deprecation: In "Dang Me", the protagonist sings about how he's an irresponsible wastrel who neglects his family while spending their money on "sittin' 'round drinkin' with the rest of the guys".
  • Scatting: One of his trademarks, with several of his songs even having scatting solos.
  • Silly Love Songs: Once in a while, probably most famously "Tall Tall Trees", plus his hit version of Bobby Russell's "Little Green Apples".
  • Song Parody: "King of the Road" received one of the first one of these to become a big hit, "Queen of the House" by Jody Miller (no relation), taking a song about Hobos and switching it to a song sung by a Housewife.
  • Spurned into Suicide: "One Dyin' and a Buryin' "
    I wanna be free
    Free from all this heartache and regret
    And free from pinin' for the love I can't forget
    The love that once was warm and then just somehow turned to hate
    Made my life a prison from which there's only one escape
  • Wanderlust Song: "King of the Road", though it's basically the story of someone who wanders for a living.
  • Word Salad Lyrics: A bunch of his songs were gloriously nonsensical, most famously "You Can't Roller Skate in a Buffalo Herd", which also notes that "you can't take a shower in a parakeet cage" and "you can't go swimmin' in a baseball pool".

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