When words fall short, real artists turn to music, and Sammy Hagar just did that for Charlie Kirk.
The Red Rocker didn’t drop a polished statement or some carefully scripted line. Instead, he grabbed a guitar and sang a Merle Haggard classic, shifting just a few words to make the point sting harder. His tribute came two days after Charlie Kirk, the 31-year-old founder of Turning Point USA, was gunned down in Utah while speaking to students about America’s future.
Hagar reached for “Are the Good Times Really Over,” Merle’s 1982 gut punch of a song that is equal parts heartbreak and warning. Written in a post-Watergate and post-Vietnam America, the track wrestled with whether the country had lost its grit, its pride, and its backbone. With lines about cars not lasting ten years like they should and the Liberty Bell being ignored, it painted a picture of decline that still feels fresh forty years later.
The way Hagar played it, though, was not about nostalgia. It was about now. He tweaked the opening to plead for Americans to stop rolling downhill like a snowball headed for hell, then tagged Kirk directly in the video. His caption was blunt, saying, “This is not a political statement. This is a question.”
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For a rock legend who has spent decades singing about partying and freedom, the choice was jarring in the best way. It was not about putting on a show. It was about asking if the country Kirk died fighting for has already let itself slip too far.
Charlie Kirk’s assassination has already rattled America to its core. He was not some random name in politics. He was a father of two, a husband, and a fighter who believed that conversation rather than violence was the only way to keep this country together. He said it himself not long ago, “When people stop talking, that’s when you get violence.” The bullet that cut him down proved him right in the darkest way possible.
Hagar’s tribute hit a nerve because Merle’s lyrics already asked the question so many Americans are afraid to. Are we past saving? Are we too far gone? And now, tied to Kirk’s murder, the song does not feel like just a country classic. It feels like a eulogy for common sense.
The response online started out supportive, with fans thanking Hagar for choosing Merle’s words over another empty celebrity post. But social media being what it is, the comment sections quickly turned into the same toxic battlefield Kirk warned about, a flood of finger-pointing, blame games, and political garbage drowning out the actual tribute. It is the exact cycle that cost Kirk his life.
What makes this moment matter, though, is that it came from someone outside the usual country crowd. Sammy Hagar, a Hall of Fame rocker, leaned on a Merle Haggard song because country music still knows how to say what needs to be said. That alone shows just how timeless Haggard’s voice is and how far Kirk’s influence reached.
Charlie Kirk spent his short life demanding that America talk about its problems instead of shooting each other over them. And now Sammy Hagar is singing about it, proving music can still cut through where words fail.
The final line of Hagar’s cover was simple. He hoped the good times are not really over for good. But listening to it in 2025, with Kirk’s casket on the way back to Arizona and a family left behind, that question does not just hang in the air. It feels like a dare to every American: either stop the snowball or admit Merle was right all along.
Because if the good times really are gone, then so is the country Charlie Kirk gave his life to defend.