“Lamplighting Time in the Valley” — in full, “When It’s Lamplighting Time in the Valley” — is a sentimental country waltz from the early 1930s. It is credited to the songwriters Joe Lyons and Sam C. Hart along with the Vagabonds, the country vocal group that helped popularize it.
The lyric is a piece of homesick nostalgia. Its narrator, far away and gone wrong, pictures the old home place at dusk — a mother watching from the cabin window at lamplighting time for a child who has not come back — and turns that image toward thoughts of redemption and a final reunion. That blend of sentiment and longing made it a lasting favorite.
The song was recorded widely across country and bluegrass and became a standard of the sentimental repertoire.
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