Haggard versus Chesterton . . . and the Boston bombers

Throughout an otherwise unusually restful weekend, I had an earworm: A Merle Haggard song called "Mama Tried". Catchy, but ominous. I'll get to it in a moment, but first here's Chesterton:

Many of the country songs describing crime and death have refrains of a startling joviality like cock crow, just as if the whole company were coming in with a shout of protest against so sombre a view of existence. 

"Mama Tried" is one country song that's the inverse of that. Here are the first words of the first verse:

The first thing I remember knowing,
Was a lonesome whistle blowing,
And a young un's dream of growing up to ride . . .

Cute, right? But here's the chorus, sung to music every bit as jaunty as the verses:

And I turned twenty-one in prison doing life without parole.
No-one could steer me right but Mama tried, Mama tried.
Mama tried to raise me better, but her pleading, I denied.
That leaves only me to blame 'cos Mama tried.

Ever since I first heard this song a few months ago, I've wondered on and off what appalling bloodbath took place to land someone so young in the lockup with the key thrown away, since the song never tells us. (And in my opinion it's somewhat cheap to leave that part out and skip straight from the moderately difficult little boy to the convicted arch-villain.)

Well, since the bombing, I have some idea what it could've been like.