By all rights I should be in Parkfield right now at my first ever Mother’s Day Festival. I heard so many great things about that festival that I decided to go this year and pass on my second Sunday welcome column. Alas, we are in crazy times and that plan has been shelved until next year. I hope you are all well. Zoom “jams” are about all we have in this neck of the woods to replace jams, campouts and festivals. Soon maybe we can upgrade to a six foot distance jam.
In one of our recent Zoom sessions I called the following tune because of its interesting provenance. Tell Mother I’ll Meet Her is in a very real sense the beginning of country music because Ernest “Pop“ Stoneman recorded it on the very first day of Ralph Peer’s famous Bristol Sessions. The Carter Family, Jimmie Rodgers and many others would record in the days that followed in what has become known as the “big bang” of country music. Since the tune is about mothers, I’ll share it again with you today:
In a far and distant village
Dying at the close of day
T’was a fair haired boy
Who’d wandered far from home
Take this message to my Mother
When my work on earth is through
Tell her that her boy will meet her
In the land beyond the blue
In his hand he held a picture
Of the old home far away
In the other ‘twas a mother old and grey
While in accents low he whispered
She will know that I was true
Tell her that her boy will meet her
In the land beyond the blue
CHORUS:
Tell my Mother, I will meet her
When my works of love and labor all are through
Where the good of earth are gathered
With the faithful and the true
Tell her that her boy will meet her
In the land beyond the blue
‘Tis my last good night he whispered
Angels gather ‘round my bed
Soon with all my friends and loved ones I shall be
Down the valley of the shadow
He will lead me safely through
Tell her that her boy will meet her
In the land beyond the blue
To the old home came a message
T’was to Mother from her boy
Alas for her the message came too late
For that day the angels called her
To the faithful and the true
Tonight she dwells with Willie
In the land beyond the blue
