Always Rollin’ Home

Bob Nolan
Copyright pending

I’m a rollin’ stone … always rollin’ home.
I guess I’ll have to break the habit
Sorry now I ever had it for I’m always rollin’ home.
Travelin’ all alone, guess I should have known
That when the summer breeze a blowin’
Brings a smell of things a-growin’
I’d be always rollin’ home.

I never knew how much I’ve missed that old pine tree
It seems that I can hear him sighin’ just for me,

"Won’t you please come home?"
The lonely years have flown
And brought that old familiar feelin’
To my heart that comes a stealin’
When I’m always rollin’ home.

Ever since the day I went away
I’ve been always rollin’ home.
Everything I left behind me
Seemed to say, "Why did you roam?"
The little gal I loved so well is calling
Calling to her rollin’ stone.
Now no matter where I go my heart’s returnin’
And I’m always rollin’ home.

"Always Rollin’ Home" was used as a riding song by a group of Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers played by Charles Starrett and the Sons of the Pioneers in Columbia Pictures' Outpost of the Mounties (September 14, 1939). Six months earlier, Nolan had also been cast as a Mountie in North of the Yukon (March 3, 1939), but no print of the film is available yet. Incidentally, with his broad shoulders and slim waist, Nolan looked the quintessential RCMP officer in beautifully tailored red serge.

We have found no published sheet music for this song. Nolan's repertoire box contained a lyric sheet for the song. On the lyric sheet Nolan has penciled “where the blossoms smell the sweetest” and the key designation. There are minor differences between the performance version and the lyrics from the repertoire box.

Typed copy of the lyrics from Bob Nolan’s repertoire box

The song was never commercially recorded; the only recording we’re aware of is from the soundtrack of Outpost of the Mounties.