Produced by Haggard and his mentors Fuzzy Owen and Lewis Talley, the tracks for
Going Where The Lonely Go were recorded during the same two-day marathon recording session that produced the songs for Haggard's previous 1982 album
Big City. Like its predecessor, it peaked at number 3 on the
Billboard country albums chart. Haggard composed five of the ten songs on the LP, including the chart topping title track. The album's other #1, "
You Take Me For Granted," was written as a personal statement by Haggard's wife
Leona Williams about their foundering marriage, which would end in 1983. According to the liner notes for the 1994 retrospective
Down Every Road written by music journalist Daniel Cooper, she wrote the song while sitting on the bus in
Ohio, then played it for Merle in front of several of his friends after Merle had reduced her to tears during a duet session they were recording. "He got big old tears in his eyes," Cooper quotes Leona, "and he said, 'Is that how you feel? And I said, 'Yes, it is.'" Within days, Haggard had cut the song. Part of the problem was Williams' aspirations to be more than a backup singer and her lingering resentment over the perception by many that she had elbowed the highly respected
Bonnie Owens aside. Haggard was perplexed at his wife's agitation, as he recalls in his 1981 autobiography
Sing Me Back Home: "I also resented her struggle to establish her own career. After all, I could offer her a permanent place on the stage with my show. She could even have a segment all her own. What
more could she want?" Other notable cuts include "If I Had Left It Up To You" (which features the same shuffling rhythm as "Big City") and his rendition of the
Willie Nelson composition "Half a Man," which he would record as a duet with Nelson on the album
Pancho and Lefty. The
LP also includes the melancholy "Shopping for Dresses," which Haggard wrote with
Little Jimmy Dickens, and the honky-tonk nugget "Why Am I Drinkin'."
Going Where the Lonely Go was reissued on
CD by Epic in 1990. It contains a
hidden track "Now I Know Why I'm Drinkin," and was reissued along with ''
That's the Way Love Goes'' on
CD by S & P Records in 2005. ==Critical reception==