Take Me Back To Renfro Valley
by John Lair
"At the time I wrote
this song, I was employed as a musical director of radio
station WLS in Chicago. I was also writing and producing
my own show with talent I had taken to Chicago from an
area surrounding my old home on Renfro Creek near Mount
Vernon, Kentucky. I went home on vacation and was so
depressed by the changes I found that, upon my return, I
put it all into this song. The more I heard it sung, the
more homesick I got, and the more determined I became to
go back and make it more like it had been in my boyhood.
With a boy I had put on radio, Red Foley, his brother
Cotton Foley, Whitey Ford and five hundred dollars
borrowed money, I went and got to work. Renfro Valley
became the first community in the nation to originate
and broadcast a radio program put on by the actual
residents of that community. Success was instantaneous,
overwhelming—and surprising—and we owed it mostly to
this song. Beginning in 1942, it was the theme song of
our network program for more than twelve years on CBS."
—John Lair
Take Me Back To Renfro Valley
I was born in Renfro Valley
But I drifted far away
I've been back to see the old home
And my friends of other days
Gone were old familiar faces
All the friends I used to know
Things have changed in Renfro Valley
Since the days of long ago.
Others own the old plantation
I can call it home no more
Other forms are at the fireside
Other children 'round the door
Other voices sing the old songs
When the evening sun is low
Mother sang in Renfro Valley
In the days of long ago.
Take me back to Renfro Valley
When I'm free from earthly care
Lay me down by dad and mother
Let me sleep forever there
When it's springtime in the mountains
And the dogwood blossoms blow
I'll be back in Renfro Valley
As in the days of long ago.
