I Love You, Mama - Shirley Caesar

You know so ofttimes people ask me

Shirley, why is it that you sing about mothers so much?

But you know, my Mama has been both mom and dad for me

Maybe many of you don’t know it, but my mother is a semiinvalid

Today I’d like to just say thanks, Mom

Thanks for sharing and caring about me

The many nights that you laid awake while I was out on the road singing

And many nights, many mornings rather, you wouldn’t even go to sleep

Until you’d hear me put my key in the door

I wanna say thanks for the many mornings that you’d get up

And would fix us some lunch when so many kids didn’t have anything to eat

And I remember, in my little ol' selfish way I would complain

Because I had to take biscuit and a piece of meat between the bread to school

And the children would laugh at me and I’d come home crying, saying

Mama, I don’t take that to school anymore and my Mama would say thanks

Because I remember so vividly that morning you called in the kitchen

And you told me to look down in the bag

I said, Mama, there’s nothing down in the bag but meat and bread

And Mama, I remember you took the meat and the bread out and you put it on the

table

And I said, Mama, there’s nothing down in the bag

And you said, yes, it is, that’s what you told me

She said, you’ll take this meat and this bread and you’ll go to school

And whenever the children laugh at you, you tell them that every morning when I

get up

The first thing that I do is I put my love in that bag

Thanks, Mom

When Daddy died, I remember, the relatives came

And they wanted to take us all from you

And I remember you saying with tears in your eyes

I know that nobody’s gonna give me a job

And I know that my check that I get each month is not going to be enough to

take care of my children

But some kind of way, God’s gonna make a way

And I remember you used to sing this song all the time

«Courage my soul and let me journey on

Though the night seems dark, it won’t be very long

Thanks be to God the morning light appears

The storm is passing over, hallelujah»

And, Mama, we can say today that that storm passed over

And, Mama, I wanna say thank you for denying yourself

There were times that you wanted a dress, you bought us that dress

There were times when you needed shoes, you bought us those shoes

There were times when you wanted to go out, you stayed home

Thank you, Mama, thank you for teaching me how to love

Teaching me about Jesus, making me go to Sunday school when I didn’t want to go

For, Mama, today when I look back over my life I can say that you been a good

mom

And Mama, I want to thank you for all of those whippings I got

At times I’d throw rocks and break out windows and break out street lights

And a time I’d go to the grocery stores and then steal twin popsicles and

ginger snaps

And I’ve looked you square in the eye and I’ve lied some about I been doing

And you, being a good mom, you knew when I was lying

I want to thank you, Ma, for those whippings I got

And then Mama, I want to thank you for teaching me to understand,

teaching me sharing, teaching me caring

Mama, when I saw the other kids in the neighborhood, how you would take them in

when they were hungry

Oh, you’ve been a good Mama

I’d like to just sum up this little tribute to you in four beautiful words

And I know I can’t say thank you enough, but thank you with these four words

I love you, Mama, I love you

I love you, Mama

I love you, Mama