By the time Merle Haggard released Mama Tried in 1968, the assorted drunks, convicts, and misanthropes that had populated his early songs had become a central theme. Haggard doesn’t make you feel bad for his sinners; in most cases, he doesn’t even have them repent. If anything, what makes Mama Tried a classic is that Haggard forces his characters to stand as they are—without judgment, pity, gospel choirs, or violins. The steady commitment to self-destruction that makes them interesting to encounter in art would make them impossible to handle in real life. So if you feel for the man serving life without parole in “Mama Tried,” or for the alcoholic chasing his own oblivion in “Little Ole Wine Drinker Me”—it’s not because Haggard is inviting your empathy. Such characters function as Rorschach tests, allowing the listeners to interpret them however they see fit. Still, even if Haggard doesn’t pass judgment on Mama Tried, this is an album full of sinners: They’ll calmly tell you that they’ll never love you (“Too Many Bridges to Cross Over”), or that they killed someone because they felt like it (“Folsom Prison Blues”). And while they’re comfortable with who they are, there are a few moments of introspection on Mama Tried: “Revenge must be the reason/Why forgiveness was a thing I never knew,” Haggard sings on “I’ll Always Know.” As self-reflection goes, at least that’s a start.