Gillian Welch has shared a previously unreleased song on Acony Records, the label founded by Welch and her partner David Rawlings in 2001. The timely new tune, titled “Happy Mother’s Day,” was discovered from a recently unearthed collection of demos and home recordings from the early 2000s.
In the song, the Americana veteran announces a roaring “Happy Mother’s Day” to her mother in another town or state, from her “daughter far away.” “I love you and I miss you,” she sings in her characteristically warm drawl, “on this Happy Mother’s Day.” While we can’t always be with our moms on Mother’s Day for whatever reason, the pain of separation is felt more widely this year as people around the country are socially distancing.
“We can’t always be with the ones we love, but that can’t stop us from saying “’I love you,’” she wrote in a tweet. She continued in a press statement:
I wrote this song one May when I was far away and couldn’t be with my mom on Mother’s Day. Then I called and sang it into her answering machine when I knew everybody’d be sitting down to eat. Here is the original home demo for the song, recorded on a portable reel to reel.
Listen to “Happy Mother’s Day” below, or stream it on your DSP on choice right here. Keep scrolling to hear a 1999 set featuring Welch and David Rawlings in New York City via the Paste vault. Find the “Happy Mother’s Day” track art further down.
“Happy Mother’s Day” Single Art:
