Mama's Opry

Iris DeMent

[note: harmony vocals provided by Emmylou Harris]



She grew up plain and simple in a farming town

Her daddy played the fiddle and use to do the calling

when they had hoedowns

She said the neighbors would come

and they'd move all my grandma's furniture 'round

and there'd be twenty or more there on the old wooden floor

dancing to a country sound



The Carters and Jimmy Rodgers played her favourite songs

and on Saturday nights there was a radio show

and she would sing along

and I'll never forget her face when she revealed to me

that she'd dreamed about singing at The Grand Ol' Opry



Her eyes, oh how they sparkled when she sang those songs

While she was hanging the clothes on the line

I was a kid just a humming along

Well, I'd be playing in the grass,

to her what might've seemed obliviously

but there ain't no doubt about it, she sure made her mark on me



She played old gospel records on the phonograph

She turned them up loud and we'd sing along

but those days have passed

Just now that I am older it occurs to me

that I was singing in the grandest opry



And we sang Sweet Rose of Sharon, Abide With Me

'til I ride The Gospel Ship to Heaven's Jubilee

and In That Great Triumphant Morning my soul will be free

and My Burdens Will Be Lifted when my Saviour's face I see

So I Don't Want to Get Adjusted to This World below

but I know He'll Pilot Me 'til it comes time to go

Oh, nothing on this earth is half as dear to me

as the sound of my Mama's Opry



And we sang Sweet Rose of Sharon, Abide With Me

'til I ride The Gospel Ship to Heaven's Jubilee

and In That Great Triumphant Morning my soul will be free

and My Burdens Will Be Lifted when my Saviour's face I see

So I Don't Want to Get Adjusted to This World below

but I know He'll Pilot Me 'til it comes time to go

Oh, nothing on this earth is half as dear to me

as the sound of my Mama's Opry