| Date: Tue, 18 Mar 2003
00:48:01 -0600
Hi Barney,
Yes, I knew Webb
Pierce but not too well. However, he did record a song I wrote, placing
it in an album. The song was "New Love Affair". Webb had a great many
hits at the time, and was one of the hottest recording artists going.
Red Sovine had recorded the song earlier, when he changed record labels
and started on a new one. Webb really liked the song, and was going to
put it on a single. The bridge and chorus ran like this:
"If your heart keeps
on yearning
For a love that's not
returning,
If your dreams have
all been shattered
And your heart's left
cold and bare,
Just a little
affection
From someone who
cares…
That's just what
started
My new love affair."
However, since Red was
a very good friend of his, and Webb was really up there on top, he did
not wish to "wrap up" Red's song, which was getting him started on the
new label. So at the last minute, so to speak, Webb changed his mind
and decided to record the song later in an album, and that way it would
not "cover up" Red's rendition. I also gave Webb half the tune for
recording it (a common practice in those days).
Ugh! That Webb Pearce
"single" that my song was to have been on the other side of, was a
monstrous hit (some 3 million records before one could say good
morning!). Even if the disk jockeys had not played my tune at all, but
just the other side, my royalties would have eventually run somewhere
around $50,000. As it was, the song made me about $3,000 or so over the
years. That "nearly a big one" passed so close I could feel its breath!
My song that Jim
Reeves recorded was a recitation, "Mother Went A'Walking". A mournful
thing set against the background of a choir singing "Shall We Gather At
the River". But one that sorta twists one's innards. Jim was killed
along with one of his musicians, while coming back to Nashville in his
light plane (Jim was flying). There was some weather, and he crashed in
Brentwood where they later found the plane and the bodies. The song is:
-----------------------------------------------------
Mother Went A'Walking
© T. E. Bearden
(Mournful hymn,
voices, "Shall we gather at the river…..that flows by the throne of
God."
Then hum:…………..(hymn
continues, hummed in background).
Recites:
"The church doors opened one Sunday in a little country town,
The people all were
silent in the rain that misted down.
And in the dim
candlelight within, a casket lay so still
That soon would lie
beneath the earth, up at the top of the hill.
An old gray-haired
granddad, his shoulders stooped with pain,
Was holding fast a
little boy, who kept crying in the rain.
The little boy kept
asking, in a low and plaintive tone:
"What's wrong with
Mommy, Grandpa? Won't she be coming home?
It's awful lonesome,
Grandpa, since daddy went away,
And mommy's all the
reason why I'm happy every day.
Wouldn't she feel
better, Grandpa, if I lay down by her side?"
The old man turned and
faced him, and with these words replied.
"Mother went a'walking,
son, up yonder in the sky;
Along the brook that
winds among the stars up there on high.
And down the valley
where the sun goes home at night to sleep,
Yes, mother went
a'walking, son, she wouldn't want us to weep."
(Chorus swells, voices
: "Yes, we'll gather at the river,
The beautiful, the
beautiful river.
Gather with the Saints
at the river,
That flows by the
throne of God."
(Chorus hums,
continues in background.).
Recite:
The boy couldn't seem
to understand just where his mom had gone;
He couldn't realize
that now she wouldn’t be coming home.
He saw the rain on
Grandpa's face --- he didn't know he cried,
And of course he
couldn't hear the words that Grandpa said inside.
"Your mother went
a'walkin', son, away up in the sky;
And all that we can do
down here is bow our heads and cry.
She's gone to meet
your daddy now, and take him by the hand;
Yes, mother went
a'walkin' son, in God's great meadowland."
(Chorus swells,
voices): "Yes, we'll gather at the river!
The beautiful, the
beautiful river!
Gather with the Saints
at the river,
That flows by the
throne of God.
Chorus continues,
fading to out.
--------------------------------------
When Jim did it, it
made cold chills up and down one's spine. It's odd to see an audience
of 3,000 and not a dry eye in the place.
Behind most songs --
certainly the Country and Western songs --- there is a psychology and a
meaning.
The hidden psychology
of the song is that my mother was killed in a car wreck when I was two
years old. The "Grandfather" is a transposal of my beloved Grandmother,
who raised me. My father, who could not read and write, was a
hardworking timber man who had to go where the job was, and worked away
from home and in other states so that I only saw him every two or three
months or so, etc. Every person is like a "tree" with inner rings for
each year; inside the adult, there is that younger self at 14 years old,
one at 13, one at 12, and so on … and that little fellow at two years
old, etc. All of them are still there with one, forever. What they
saw, felt, and experienced is all still there, perfectly recorded. So
those "inner little fellows" inside me just had that sort of vast, empty
feeling and hurt deep inside, for one's lost mother and for one's mostly
absent, very hard working father. Putting one's heart into a song and
recitation as a young fellow of 22 or 23 was just one way of
communicating the "inside person". That was the "little fellow" talking.
Now if any established
artist is looking for a good Civil War song on the Battle of Gettysburg,
with a gut-wrenching line or two……"
Cheers,
Tom B.
HI TOM,
WEBB PIERCE WAS SINGING BACK IN OUR DAY. HE WAS FROM THE WEST MONROE
AREA. DID YOU KNOW HIM? THE MOREHEADS LIVED NEAR CHENIERE.
BARNEY
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