Every Mother’s Day, a sticky melody flows into my year. It’s a song I heard on Okinawa, where I spent eleven years of my childhood. Young Agnes Chan’s version of “Mother of Mine” is ever so poignant many decades later.
The teenager from Hong Kong rose to fame in Japan, singing Japanese, Chinese, and English songs. Agnes Chan’s version of “Mother of Mine” was none other than a cover of the original released the previous year in 1971. She sings it in C#m, a semitone above the original and replaces “thank” with “pray”.
Until my mad hunt for the origins of the song today, I didn’t know it was written by Bill Parkinson and that it was sung by 12-year old Neil Reid from Scotland. Of course I was just a kid on Okinawa, so I totally related to their young voices.
A year later, 9-year old Jimmy Osmond recorded it. His version is slightly different, substituting the word “should” for “had to” and “pray” for “thank” . He also modulates one step up instead of a half-step in the final verse. I suppose you can think of this as word painting, when he modulates up, he’s now all grown up.
As I couldn’t find any readable song sheets for the ukulele, I created a one-page song sheet for this 17-chord song to sing and play along to Neil Reid. Click on the sample for the one-page song sheet.
At time of writing, I am transposing it to Dm and modulating the last verse a whole step higher to Em. It’s easier to play (on the ukulele) and sing. I am also arranging an instrumental (chord melody) version for every Mother’s Day.
It looks like someone else had the same idea: a lovely piano arrangement in Dm, modulating to Em.