Why, Tell Me, Why?

Bob Nolan
Original copyright: July 4, 1936

If I’m not too bold, there is something I would like to ask you.
If you will wait, there’s something I would like to say.
It won’t take long, so listen
And then I’ll be on my way.

Refrain:
The wild hawk flies in search of prey,
I missed the robin’s song today
And then I found him where he lay.
Oh why, tell me why?
A mother stills her darlin’s pain.
I call for mother all in vain.
I never even knew her name.
Why, tell me why?

The road is not so long an’ the travelin’s not so hard
And my heart needs, oh, so little to be glad.
So let each bird sing all the day to cheer me on my carefree way
Then I will never have to say, “Oh why, tell me why?”

Bob Nolan spent a good deal of time pondering the unfathomable questions of life and many of his songs reflect these thoughts. His friends agree that he often wished to be by himself and they respected this wish.

As an adult, Bob was not even sure of his mother's name. After his mother and father were divorced, his father disappeared into the United States. His mother tried to raise her two little boys on her small wage at the Manitoba Telephone Company but couldn't. She was forced to take them to New Brunswick to leave them temporarily with her ex-husband's parents who blamed her for the divorce. They refused to have her name spoken in their home and if she wrote to them, the little boys did not receive the letters. And so Bob, only 8 at the time, believed she had abandoned him. His father whisked them off to Boston and changed their names. Bob never saw his mother again. He hid the pain deep in his heart but it emerges here in the chorus of this song.

“Why Tell Me Why” was never recorded or appeared on any of the radio transcriptions. Nolan aficionado, Dave Bourne, took the music and recorded it for us, just the way it was written in the songbook. It was registered for copyright on July 4, 1936.

“Why, Tell Me Why” was included in the second Sons of the Pioneers' songbook, Songs of the Pioneers Folio No. 2, © 1936 by American Music, Inc.

Why Tell Me Why (American Music, Inc.)