Echoes From the Hills

Bob Nolan
Original copyright: 1936

Sometimes I wonder why I had to roam.
Somehow, my thoughts are trav’lin’ way back home.
I miss the hills, the old folks
And my little sister, Lou.
I wonder if they miss me, too?

Refrain:
I’m a long way from home and that blue mountain dome
Still I hear the echoes from the hills.
And there’s sweet Lillie Belle, my little hillbilly gal,
Callin’ in the echoes from the hills.
When I left my pappy said, “Now don’t do nothin’ wrong.”
I recall my mammy sayin’, “Sonny, don’t be long,”
So I know that someday I’ll be wendin’ my way
Back among the echoes from the hills.

Sometimes, when twilight steals across the blue,
Someone is strolling down the path we knew.
From an echo in the hills,
A message comes to me.
I know it’s there that I should be.

The first commercial recording of this song by the Sons of the Pioneers was for Decca on October 9, 1935, but earlier that year the Pioneers had recorded it for the Standard Radio transcriptions (from which they made very little money). Nolan dusted the song off in 1939, and the Pioneers sang it in Columbia's The Thundering West, a Charles Starrett picture.

The sheet music was first printed in The Sons of the Pioneers Song Folio No. 1", Copyright 1936 by Cross & Winge, Inc.

Echoes From the Hills (Cross & Winge, Inc.)

SONS OF THE PIONEERS TRANSCRIPTION RECORDINGS

Standard Radio Transcription, No. 2542, (1935)

Orthacoustic Symphonies of the Sage, No. 064382

NBC Thesaurus transcriptions, LPT 372 (courtesy of Wallace Smith)

Teleways Radio Productions transcriptions, Nos. 89, 134, and 214

Lucky U Ranch radio show (courtesy of Larry Hopper)
- Transcriptions disc TR-143/144 (December 13, 1951)
- Transcriptions disc TR-146/147 (December 14, 1951)
- Transcriptions disc TR-248/249 (February 20, 1952)
- Transcriptions disc TR-329/330 (April 17, 1952)
- Transcriptions disc TR-455/456 (July 30, 1952)
- Transcriptions disc TR-539/540 (October29, 1952)

Smokey the Bear radio show, episode No. 1 (1955)