Lyr Req: Mother's Song (Lisa Null, Sally Rogers)

Subject: Lyr Req: Mother Song
From: GUEST,MomInNeed
Date: 03 May 05 - 02:05 PM

I am looking for the lyrics of a song called The Mother Song by Sally Rogers. It is on her album called Love Will Guide Us.The last line in the song is, "When a Mother needs a mother, there's no one left to give". There are no lyrics on her website and I need the lyrics now and the song is not with me.
Help!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Mother Song
From: Gypsy
Date: 03 May 05 - 10:37 PM

Might be a concept to email her..........according to whatcher doin', she might be amenable

Subject: Lyr Add: ROCK ME TO SLEEP (Elizabeth Akers Allan)
From: kytrad (Jean Ritchie)
Date: 04 May 05 - 05:48 PM

Here's another Mother song- if you cannot find Sally's. Sure to be very different, too! An old sentimental one that Mom used to ask our family to sing, on the porch of a spring night. As we sang I could tell she was remembering her own Mom.

ROCK ME TO SLEEP

Backward, turn backward, O Time in your flight,
Make me a child again just for tonight.
Mother, come back from the echoless shore-
Take me again to your heart as of yore.
   Kiss from my forehead the furrows of care,
   Smoothe the few silver threads out of my hair;
   Over my slumber your loving watch keep-
   Rock me to sleep, Mother, rock me to sleep.

Over my heart in the days that have flown
No love like motherlove ever has shown;
No other worship abides and endures
Faithful, unselfish and patient like yours.
   None like a mother can charm away pain
   From the sick soul and the world-weary brain.
   Slumber's soft calm o'er my heavy lids creep-
   Rock me to sleep, Mother, rock me to sleep.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Mother Song (Sally Rogers)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 06 May 05 - 11:03 PM

The lyrics Kytrad quoted are originally from a poem called ROCK ME TO SLEEP by Elizabeth Akers Allen, 1861. The complete poem (6 stanzas) is posted in the forum here (also at www.bartleby.com).

The Library of Congress American Memory Collection has several copies of musical settings of this poem (for example, here). The song consists of only verses 1, 4, and 5 of the poem, and the last 4 lines of verse 6 are used as a chorus.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Mother Song (Sally Rogers)
From: Sorcha
Date: 06 May 05 - 11:25 PM

I just miss MY mom.

Subject: Lyr Add: THE MOTHER'S SONG (Lisa Null)
From: GUEST,Bernie
Date: 07 May 05 - 12:36 PM

THE MOTHER'S SONG
(Lisa Null)

The bones within my body say a hard rain's 'gonna fall
And the clouds outside my window paint a shadow on the wall
If only you would come to me like you did when you were small
I would not mind the end of day, nor the shadows on the wall.

If only you would come to me like you did when you were young
And sing to me the quiet songs we often times have sung
If only you would hold my hand as once I held your own
I would not mind the emptiness or the dying all alone.

I hate this endless country, it spreads from shore to shore
the West coast stole you from me, it won't let you back no more
In all my fond affection as I held you on my knee
I never faced that dreadful day when you'd be leaving me

I gave my life to you, my girl, to grow up and be free
From the shackles and the limits that once surrounded me
I gave my life to you, my child, I raised you from a seed
But never thought what mothers do, when all their hopes succeed.

And now you've gone and left me, you've children of your own
and Sunday evening, once a month, you call me on the phone
John did well in school today, and Ginny's almost grown
The little news I live for as I wait to die alone.

And now it's time for me to go, I've nothing left to live
And the spirit's leaking from me like water through a sieve
If only someone could hold back these moments that I live
but, when a mother needs a mother, there's no one left to give.

[Taken from the liner notes of Sally Rogers' lp "Love will guide us"]

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Mother Song (Sally Rogers)
From: kytrad (Jean Ritchie)
Date: 07 May 05 - 06:07 PM

... a funny little memory, before we get TOO sad: Some years ago, I did a little tv show for Mother's Day with Anita Bryant and Marian Seldes. At rehearsal we all were laughing at the fact that most all the trad songs about mothers were about whippings, scoldings of kids, murder (She leaned her back against a thorn...etc.)and none of us knew any happy songs praising mothers. I remember we did some readings, told some personal stories, sang some children's game-songs, I did a verse or two of, "Backward, Turn Backward," and actually made up one using the melody of,"Twilight A-Stealing." I still have those words somewhere but have quite forgotten them!

Looking for motherhood folklore in NYC,when I arrived in the late 1940s, I found:

My mother, your mother lived across the way,
314 East Broadway-
My mother, your mother had a big fight-
My mother, your mother shot out the light!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Mother Song (Sally Rogers)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 07 May 05 - 06:49 PM

My sister found this framed poem among my mother's possessions, and she gave it to me as a memento:

Keeping folks happy through
comfort and cheer,
Making folks better, just
having her near,
That is the story of Mother's
full days,
And that's why folks love
Her!
God Bless Her always.
M.A.H.

My mom hated sappy sentimentality, which is probably why this "poem" was hidden deep in a drawer. Her greatest hatred was reserved for cats, but she hated sappy sentimentality almost as much. I guess my sister didn't understand that.

But what Mom loved was wicked wit. I think my sister's late husband and I were the only ones who really understood my mother's appreciation of that kind of wit. So, he and I would send her sappy Mother's Day cards with pictures of cats on them, and Mom would love us for our wicked wittiness.

A couple of weeks ago, I came across a card that would be perfect for my mom. I last saw her just before Mother's Day last year, but by then her dementia had progressed to the point where she couldn't appreciate our shared humor any more. She died in December, and I got a little pang of loss when I realized I didn't have anybody to buy sappy kitty cards for any more.

But Mom, I'll think of you and chuckle every time I come across that kind of sentimentality.

Meow!!

-Joe Offer-