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:: Cameron Mitchell - Born of a Simple Woman ::

Cameron Mitchell was a TV and B-movie actor for about 50 years in a bunch of stuff you’ve probably never seen. At some point in 1973, he released this one-sided single, “Born of a Simple Woman.” The story behind it is that while on a flight from L.A. to Nashville for a charity benefit, he jotted down this magical and meandering story of Jesus. He recited it at the benefit and people were so touched that he then recorded it with the inspirational strains of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” in the background, ‘cause, you know, Jesus mixes well with war. According to the back cover copy, “Pope Paul heard it three times…and each time with tears in his heart and eyes.”

For the most part, it’s a lot of dramatized rambling. Mitchell switches between the hip lingo of the day and archaic pronouns like, “thee” and “thine.” Try to stick around towards the end when he addresses the audience he was aiming for, which includes aliens: “And now we say to one and all, this to one and all we say, to all the armies, navies, governments, and spaceships far away, this simple man of love was never royalty, nor king, yet his truth goes marching on.” Feel that tug? It’s your heart, crying.


Phil

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