‘Mother and Child Reunion’ is a song by the American singer-songwriter Paul Simon. It was the lead single from his second studio album, Paul Simon (1972), released on Columbia Records. The song was released as a single on February 5, 1972, reaching No. 1 in South Africa, No. 4 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart, and No. 5 on the UK Singles Chart. Billboard ranked it as the No. 57 song for 1972. This was Simon's first single as a solo artist.
It was, at the time, one of the few songs by a non-Jamaican musician to use prominent elements of reggae. Simon was a fan of reggae music, and he listened to artists such as Jimmy Cliff, Desmond Dekker, and Byron Lee; he wanted to go to Kingston, Jamaica to record the song, as that was where Cliff had recorded his antiwar song ‘Vietnam’ in 1970. Simon wrote this in response to the Jimmy Cliff song ‘Vietnam,’ where a mother receives a letter about her son's death on the battlefield. Simon recorded ‘Mother and Child Reunion’ in Jamaica using Cliff's musicians, hence the very authentic sound. Simon said of the song that it "became the first reggae hit by a non-Jamaican white guy outside Jamaica." Paul Simon was ahead of the trend when he released this reggae-infused song: Johnny Nash went to #1 US later in 1972 with ‘I Can See Clearly Now,’ and Eric Clapton topped the chart with ‘I Shot The Sheriff’ (a Bob Marley cover) in 1974.
The title has its origin in a chicken-and-egg dish called "Mother and Child Reunion" that Simon saw on a Chinese restaurant's menu. He explained in a 1972 Rolling Stone interview: “Know where the words came from on that? You would never have guessed. I was eating in a Chinese restaurant downtown. There was a dish called "Mother and Child Reunion." It's chicken and eggs. And I said, "Oh, I love that title. I gotta use that one."
The song's lyrics were inspired by a pet dog that was run over and killed. It was the first death Simon personally experienced, and he began to wonder how he would react if the same happened to his first wife, Peggy Harper. "Somehow there was a connection between this death and Peggy and it was like Heaven, I don't know what the connection was," Simon told Rolling Stone in 1972.
Label – Columbia
Songwriter – Paul Simon
Producers – Roy Halee, Paul Simon
SONG LYRICS
[Chorus]No, I would not give you false hope
On this strange and mournful day
But the mother and child reunion
Is only a motion away
[Verse 1]
Oh, little darling of mine
I can't for the life of me
Remember a sadder day
I know they say let it be
But it just don't work out that way
And the course of a lifetime runs
Over and over again
[Chorus]
No, I would not give you false hope
On this strange and mournful day
But the mother and child reunion
Is only a motion away
[Verse 2]
Oh, little darling of mine
I just can't believe it's so
Though it seems strange to say
I never been laid so low
In such a mysterious way
And the course of a lifetime runs
Over and over again
[Chorus]
But I would not give you false hope (No)
On this strange and mournful day
When the mother and child reunion
Is only a motion away
[Outro]
Oh, the mother and child reunion is only a motion away
Oh, the mother and child reunion is only a moment away (Oh)
Oh, the mother and child reunion is only a motion away
Oh, the mother and child reunion is only a moment away (Oh)
Oh, the mother and child reunion, oh, is only a motion away
Oh, the mother and child reunion is only a moment away, way, way, way