"Mothering Sunday" - best Mother's Day song ever

Re-posted from 2009. This is my favorite song for a mother, ever, no question. My mother was long dead when I recorded it, but I thought about her anyway:

Mothering Sunday

It gives me chills just thinking about it. I recorded it with Jacqueline Schwab and Robbie Link on "Sedgefield Fair."

In the 19th century, changes in land policy in England made it impossible for many families to keep their children at home. The boys were sent away to work on faraway farms and the girls were sent out to be servants.

Often they had to go a long way from home to find jobs, and they worked six days a week, so there was not time to walk home, visit, and walk back to the place of employment in time. One of the few times a family could hope to be together was "Mothering Sunday." The kids would come home and fuss over their mom - bake her pancakes - and this song is about that day.

Mothering Sunday
George Hare Leonard

It is the day of all the year,
Of all the year the one day,
When I shall see my mother dear
And bring her cheer,
A-mothering on Sunday.

So I'll put on my Sunday coat,
And in my hat a feather,
And get the lines I writ by rote,
With many a note,
That I've a-strung together.

And now to fetch my wheaten cake
To fetch it from the baker,
He promised me, for mother's sake,
The best he'd bake
For me to fetch and take her.

The boys will all come home from town
Not one will miss that one day;
And every maid will bustle down
To show her gown,
A-mothering on Sunday.

It is the day of all the year,
Of all the year the one day;
And here come I, my mother dear,
And bring you cheer,
A-mothering on Sunday.

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