The jacket accompanying MM Murphy's album says, "Cowboys showing reverance for their mothers often sang this poignant song about a poor cowboy who was mortally injured in a fall from his horse. In the original 1893 poem "After The Roundup", by Montana cowboy poet D.J. O'Malley, the cowboy's mother apparently preceded him in death, for his last words were "I'll see my mother when work's done this fall."