All the while, though, she kept thinking, “Someday when things are good I’m gonna leave.” Leona kept a pen and a notepad in the bathroom of their home and one day, she started writing “Someday When Things Are Good” in there.
After completing it in the early part of 1983, Leona presented the song to Haggard on the bus before a show in Fresno, California. She and Merle happened to be getting along that day and everything was great. She was hesitant to play it for him because she was afraid that he would read between the lines and realize the song was about them. If Haggard did figure it out, he never let it be known. But he did love “Someday When Things Are Good” and quickly earmarked it for his upcoming session at Nashville’s Woodland Sound Studio. That session also yielded another number one hit, “That’s The Way Love Goes,” in February, 1984.
Soon afterward, the situation with Merle became just too unbearable and Williams took the lyrics to her song literally and filed for divorce. One year later, “Someday When Things Are Good” reached the number one position of Billboard’s country singles chart on June 9, 1984. In later years, Leona married Dave Kirby (a former member of Haggard’s band, The Strangers) and moved back to her hometown of Vienna, Missouri, performing now and then in Branson. In 2008, she recorded the album “Leona Williams Sings Merle Haggard.”
