“A Hundred Years From Now” (also titled “I Won’t Care (A Hundred Years From Now)”) was written by Red River Dave McEnery, the Texas-born country and Western singer-songwriter who became known in the 1940s for his topical “event songs” and Western performance style. The song first appeared in McEnery’s 1940 song folio Songs Of The Mountains And Plains, where it was published as “I Won’t Care (A Hundred Years From Now).”
The earliest commercial recording came on June 18, 1940, when country duo Bob Atcher and Bonnie Blue Eyes cut the song under the title “I Won’t Care (A Hundred Years From Now).” It was released on Okeh 05755 in August 1940. Red River Dave eventually recorded the song himself in the 1960s on the LP The Singing, Yodeling Cowboy.
The song crossed into the bluegrass repertoire through Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, whose recording brought “A Hundred Years From Now” to the bluegrass audience and effectively established the canonical bluegrass arrangement. The lyric’s framing — the singer’s resigned declaration that none of this will matter a hundred years from now — gave the song the kind of cosmic-perspective heartbreak weight that has kept it in active use for over eight decades. It remains a regular at jam sessions where pickers want a piece with classic resigned-perspective country-bluegrass phrasing.
