By:Lester Flatt, Earl Scruggs · Source Recording: Song details
For many years I've been a rolling stone my darlin'
Like a gypsy I have roamed from place to place
Fortune never came to me how happy I would be
Just to look again upon your smiling face
Now if I should wander back tonight would you be waitin'
Would your eyes be filled with love's own tender light
Would your arms be empty dear would you thrill to find me near
Would you love me if I wandered back tonight
When budding flowers lend their fragrance in the springtime
I recall the roses twining 'round your door
Fancy then I homeward stray I seem to hear you say
That you love me as you did in days of yore
Last night I dreamed that you and I were back together
I held your hand so gently in my own
Heard you say we'd never part as I pressed you to my heart
Then I woke in tears to find myself alone
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By:Lester Flatt, Earl Scruggs · Source Recording:Flatt & Scruggs (1952*)
“If I Should Wander Back Tonight” is credited to Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs. Their band, the Foggy Mountain Boys, recorded it for Columbia on 9 November 1952 at Castle Studio in the Tulane Hotel in Nashville, the same day they cut “Flint Hill Special,” “Dim Lights, Thick Smoke” and the instrumental “Dear Old Dixie.” Flatt sang it alone and played guitar, with Scruggs on banjo, Curly Seckler on mandolin and Jody Rainwater on bass. Columbia issued it on 19 June 1953 as Columbia 21125, with “Dear Old Dixie” on the other side. In August 1965 it was reissued on the Harmony LP Kings of Bluegrass: Great Original Recordings, Vol. 1.
The singer has been a rolling stone for years, roaming like a gypsy from place to place without finding his fortune. He asks whether, if he wandered back tonight, she would be waiting, her eyes filled with love and her arms empty. Spring flowers remind him of the roses around her door. In the last verse he dreams that they are together again and wakes in tears to find himself alone.
Flatt and Scruggs recorded the song again on 3 February 1961 at the Bradley Film and Recording Studio in Nashville. By then the band included Buck Graves on dobro, Paul Warren on fiddle and Jake Tullock on bass, with Seckler still on mandolin and Doug Kirkham on drums. This version came out on 3 April 1961 as the B side of “I Ain’t Gonna Work Tomorrow” (Columbia 4-41983). Flatt recorded it again with the Nashville Grass at Arthur Smith Studios in Charlotte, North Carolina, for A Living Legend (CMH, 1976).
Don Reno and Red Smiley performed it at Himmelreich’s Grove in Womelsdorf, Pennsylvania, on 16 August 1964, and that recording was issued in 1989 on A Day in the Country (Copper Creek). Red Allen and Frank Wakefield recorded it in New York in April 1971, with Don Stover on banjo. It was released in 1976 on Red Clay. Roland White sang it on I Wasn’t Born to Rock ’n’ Roll (Ridge Runner, 1976), recorded in Fort Worth with Alan Munde on banjo. Hot Rize included it on Traditional Ties (Sugar Hill, 1985), with Tim O’Brien singing lead and playing mandolin and fiddle. In 2011 it appeared on Sleep with One Eye Open by Chris Thile and Michael Daves (Nonesuch), recorded that January at Third Man Studios in Nashville. The same year it was on Hartford Rice Clements, with Tony Rice singing lead, John Hartford on banjo and Vassar Clements on fiddle.
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Clicks before the band comes in, so you start together.
Raises the tempo as the band goes round, so you build up speed.
The band goes quiet for a bar or two and you keep the time going.
Clicks before the band comes in, so you start together.
Raises the tempo as the band goes round, so you build up speed.
The band goes quiet for a bar or two and you keep the time going.
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