And Don’t Forget to Give My Love to Rose: The Playlist of an Estranged Daughter

Johnny Cash In Recording Studio In October 1959 Photo Credit: Don Hunstein

My mother’s birthday recently passed, but I did not call or send a friendly text. We did not celebrate over Zoom, and I would not know her address to send a card. I have not spoken to my mother in almost three years. I am estranged from both of my parents, and am not sure if or when that will ever change. It’s not ideal, but this is what is healthiest for me at this time.

People might assume that estrangement only happens in families who are already quite distant. Maybe in other cases that’s true, but my family was close. My parents were a major part of my life, and I can’t pretend that I do not feel the pain of their absence. Sometimes I really miss them, and that’s hard. It’s hard to grieve people who are living, but out of reach. It’s complicated, but, like I said, it’s for the best.

My mother is a huge country music fan. She was a school bus driver, and would take me along with her on her route when I was a child. When my mother drove, she loved to sing. Some of my earliest memories are of her belting country songs on her way to kids’ houses. She mostly liked the ones with sad stories: broken hearts, child ghosts, broken men dying by the railroad tracks - anything remotely morose. Looking back, I realize that these topics maybe weren't entirely appropriate for me at my young age, but I was enthralled. I would bump along behind her on the vinyl seat as she drove and sang, getting completely lost in her songs. My mother has a beautiful, deep voice. 

When my parents and I were still on good terms, they gave me their vinyl collection. This included many of my mom's country favourites. After we stopped speaking, I could not listen to these records for a long time. Back then, I actively avoided anything that reminded me of my parents, especially music. Now that a few years have passed, and I have seen a great therapist, I am no longer diminished by songs connected to my parents. Sometimes I even seek them out. 

These are the songs my mother sang to me most often as she drove. Sometimes, I listen to them, and I think about her and I on the bus together. I have difficult feelings to work through in terms of my parents, so it is nice to be able to hold onto the easier parts of our lives together. Like when I was just a dreamy little girl, listening to her mother sing about capital punishment…

Johnny Cash, Long Black Veil

Johnny Cash is my mother’s favourite. Long Black Veil was originally recorded by Lefty Frizzle, but I know from my mother’s delivery that she sang the Cash version. In Long Black Veil, our man in black sings about a woman wearing black, because her secret lover (her husband’s best friend!) had to die for a crime he did not commit (because he was with the woman and refuses to bring shame upon her or her husband). I remember thinking that the woman was acting pretty obvious, wearing that long black veil around town.

The Original Caste, One Tin Soldier

Apparently, “One Tin Soldier” was the theme song for a 1971 Western movie called Billy Jack. When I was a kid, it was just a song my mother liked to sing, about a town where the valley people killed the mountain people over rumoured treasure. This video features some neat animation, which is quite lovely and nostalgic to watch. Of course, back when my mother sang this on the bus, I did not have access to the cartoon and had to imagine the carnage myself. 

Bringing Mary Home, Country Gentlemen

My mother’s delivery of this song was much darker than this version. I only remember her singing it at night, but that cannot be right, as her route was during the morning. I think I just associated it with the darkness of midnight because of the story. The singer picks up a little girl off the side of the road, named Mary...but when he arrives at her home, she vanishes. A woman meets him and explains that Mary is a child ghost that has haunted him and several others throughout the years. She had died years earlier in a car crash. You can see why I was so afraid: Mary haunted not only the back seat of the car, but my young mind as well.

Rosanne Cash, Seven Year Ache

This is the only song of Rosanne Cash’s that I am familiar with, but hot damn, it is a bop! No wonder my mother would turn the stereo up and give it her all whenever it came on the radio. It’s the perfect song for her kind of voice too, deep and husky and full of attitude. Even when I listen now, I can’t help but hear the breathy way she’d sing “girls say, ‘God I hope he comes back soon!’”. 

Johnny Cash, Give My Love to Rose

A dying man, just released from prison, meets a stranger by the railroad tracks. He has kept his son and his love, Rose, in his heart through ten years of incarceration. He was making his way back to reunite with Rose, when he presumably injured himself trainhitching. He begs the stranger to take his money, and find Rose so that she will know that she was loved. There is not much time left, and the hope that has kept him going will not keep him alive. If I sing along to this song, I will cry.  

I have read that an estrangement can feel like a loss of hope, and I can say wholeheartedly that I agree. I have lost hope that I can have a healthy relationship with my mother, at least, as things stand. What is not lost, however, are the memories of these songs, or the love that I felt for her then and that I feel for her now. Sometimes love can mean keeping a distance . . . and listening to the occasional country song.

This story was submitted by JB.