At Mail Call Today
"At Mail Call Today" is a song written and recorded by American country music artist Gene Autry. The song, recorded in 1945, became Gene Autry's most successful song on the Juke Box Folk charts, peaking at number one for eight weeks with a total of twenty-two weeks on the charts.[1] The B-side of "At Mail Call Today", a song entitled, "I'll Be Back" would peak at number seven on the same chart.
The song is similar to other contemporary love songs and deals with the possibility of unfaithfulness.[2] The lyrics describe a young soldier opening a Dear John letter at mail call and learning that the girl he loved from back home has left him. The final words reflect the soldier's despair:
Good luck and God bless you
Wherever you stray
The world for me ended
At Mail Call To-day.[3]
Chart performance
| Chart (1945) | Peak position |
|---|---|
| U.S. Billboard Hot Country Singles | 1 |
References
- ↑ Whitburn, Joel (2004). The Billboard Book Of Top 40 Country Hits: 1944–2006, Second edition. Record Research. p. 35.
- ↑ Smith, Kathleen E. R. (2003). God Bless America ; Tin Pan Alley Goes to War. The University Press of Kentucky. p. 44. ISBN 0-8131-2256-2.
- ↑ Jones, John Bush (2006). The Songs that Fought the War. Lebanon, NH: University Press of New England. pp. 256–57. ISBN 978-1-58465-443-8.
Additional Reading
- Cusic, Don. Gene Autry: His Life and Career. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 2007. ISBN 0-7864-3061-3 OCLC 81150476
- Jones, John Bush. The Songs That Fought the War: Popular Music and the Home Front, 1939–1945. Waltham. Mass.: Brandeis University Press, 2006. ISBN 1-58465-443-0 OCLC 69028073
- Kingsbury, Paul and Alanna Nash. Will the Circle Be Unbroken: Country Music in America. London: DK, 2006. ISBN 0-7566-2352-9 OCLC 71248377
- Wolfe, Charles K. and James Edward Akenson. Country Music Goes to War. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 2005. ISBN 0-8131-2308-9 OCLC 56421871
| Preceded by "Shame on You" by Spade Cooley |
Most Played Juke Box Folk Records number one single by Gene Autry May 19, 1945 July 14, 1945 |
Succeeded by "Stars and Stripes on Iwo Jima" by Bob Wills "Oklahoma Hills" by Jack Guthrie |