Conway Twitty performs Sing Me Back Home

Conway Twitty performs Sing Me Back Home.

"Sing Me Back Home" is a song written and recorded by Merle Haggard. It was released in November 1967 as the first single and title track from the album Sing Me Back Home. The song was Merle Haggard's third number one. The single spent two weeks at number one and a total of 17 weeks on the country chart.

Haggard himself spent three years at San Quentin State Prison in California for his role in a botched robbery. "Sing Me Back Home" draws upon his friendship with a fellow inmate, "Rabbit," who was executed after an escape attempt led to the death of a security guard.

Here, the singer takes the role of an inmate at a state penitentiary, where a condemned prisoner is being led toward the death chamber. The inmate, who regularly plays guitar and sings in his jail cell to pass the time, is asked to perform a final song at the condemned prisoner's request before he and the guards continue on. As the song is completed, he reflects on a church choir's visit to the prison just a week earlier, where members performed hymns for the inmates; one of the songs evoked the soon-to-be-executed prisoner's memories of his mother and carefree childhood ... before his life went wrong.

Merle Haggard Sing Me Back Home lyrics

The warden led a prisoner down the hallway to his doom

I stood up to say good-bye like all the rest

And I heard him tell the warden just before he reached my cell

'Let my guitar playing friend do my request.' (Let him...)

Sing me back home with a song I used to hear

Make my old memories come alive

Take me away and turn back the years

Sing Me Back Home before I die

I recall last Sunday morning a choir from 'cross the street

Came to sing a few old gospel songs

And I heard him tell the singers 'There's a song my mama sang.

Can I hear once before we move along?'

Sing me back home, the song my mama sang

Make my old memories come alive

Take me away and turn back the years

Sing Me Back Home before I die