“I’m Coming Back But I Don’t Know When” was written by Charlie Monroe — Bill Monroe’s older brother and the other half of the Monroe Brothers before Bill formed the Blue Grass Boys — and first recorded by Charlie Monroe and his Kentucky Pardners on March 24, 1947, in Chicago. The session featured Charlie Monroe on guitar, Larry Isley on guitar, James Martin on fiddle, Ira Loudermilk on mandolin, and Robert R. Lambert on string bass.
The song’s narrative — the singer setting out down a “lonesome road” with reluctance about leaving but no clear sense of when he’ll return — is one of the most poignant entries in the wandering-traveler tradition that runs through the bluegrass canon. Charlie Monroe’s writing tended toward the autobiographically rooted homesick song, and “I’m Coming Back But I Don’t Know When” stands among his strongest compositions in that vein.
The song crossed firmly into the bluegrass canon through subsequent treatments and is most identified in modern bluegrass with the Norman Blake and Tony Rice recording, which became the canonical contemporary version. The song has been recorded by countless bluegrass acts since and remains a regular call-out at jam sessions where pickers want a piece with the Charlie Monroe-tradition quiet-melancholy framing. Charlie Monroe (1903–1975) is sometimes called “the uncle of bluegrass” for his role alongside Bill in the Monroe Brothers’ pre-bluegrass commercial recordings.
