Mothers, Daughters, Wives

Annotation — Australian & New Zealand Songs

Judy Small, contemporary folk artist, born in 1953 in Coffs Harbour, NSW, Australia. This album featured the song "Mothers, Daughters, Wives" (Redwood Records # RR3100), which looked at the impact of the war on the home front, as men "marched away with drums and guns". She said that: "written in 1982, I wrote this song for my mother... and for all the women of her generation who, it seemed to me, spent a large part of their lives waiting for their menfolk to come home from war. They were the women whose work during World War II showed us that women could do any kind of job and were perfectly capable of independence" - from the Judy Small Songbook.1 The narrator first experienced war as a daughter, has her father went to war, and her mother scoured the "papers... and lists of dead". Next, she had grown-up, and married, and it was her husband off to war. In the final section of the song, "daughters grew to women, and your little boys to men", and they "bravely waved goodbye", marching off to war. There are several cover versions of this song, including by John Schumann on the album Behind the Lines (2008), and by Danny Spooner on the album Emerging Tradition (2007). Sources1mysongbook.de: Mothers, Daughters, Wives (archived copy)↩

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Lyrics

English: The first time it was fathers / The last time it was sons / And in between your husbands / Marched away with drums and guns / And you never thought to question / You just went on with your lives / 'Cause all they taught you who to be / Was mothers, daughters, wives / You can only just remember the tears your mothers shed / As they sat and read their papers through the lists and lists of dead / And the gold frames held the photographs that mothers kissed each night / And the doorframe held the shocked and silent stranger from the fight. It was twenty-one years later with children of your own / The trumpets sounded once again, the soldier boys were gone / So you made their guns and drove their trucks and tended to their wounds / And at night you kissed their photographs and prayed for safe returns / And after it was over you had to learn again / To be just wives and mothers when you'd done the work of men / So you worked to help the needy and you never trod on toes / The photos on the pianos struck a happy family pose. Then your daughters grew to women and your little boys to men / And you prayed that you were dreaming when the call-up came again / But you proudly smiled and held your tears as they bravely waved goodbye / The photos on the mantelpiece, they always made you cry / And now you're getting older, and in time the photos fade / And in widowhood you sit back and reflect on the parade / Of the passing of your memories, how your daughters changed their lives /…

Notes

Written 1982; covered by John Schumann (Behind the Lines, 2008) and Danny Spooner (Emerging Tradition, 2007).

About the artist

Judy Small - contemporary folk singer-songwriter, born 1953 in Coffs Harbour, NSW.

Themes

Home Front Perspective · WW1 · WW2 · Women's Liberation · Anti-War · LGBTQ+

In collections

Australian & New Zealand Songs