“My Love Follows You Where You Go”.

#28 in our series, Bluegrass Does It All

—in which we demonstrate that bluegrass music encompasses all.

Filed under: Sonic Theology

—The Right Reverend James Groady, Voice of the Southern Revivalists

(Editor’s Note: We recognize that not every composition featured in this series fits the strict taxonomical definition of bluegrass. Still, all are performed by artists deeply rooted in that musical soil. And as we’ve said before: “They have incorporated, they have encompassed.”)

“My Love Follows You Where You Go”

by Liz Rose, Barry Dean, and Lori McKenna

as performed live by Alison Krauss & Union Station

There are songs that entertain.

There are songs that preach.

And then, now and again, there is a song that attends—that lingers like a guardian spirit at the edges of a journey you must take alone.

This is one of those songs.

I speak plainly now. Bluegrass, in its truest form, has always struck me as a bridge—not only between regions and generations, but between this world and the next. Between the tangible ache of parting and the ineffable promise of reunion.

“My Love Follows You Where You Go” is a hymn disguised as a lullaby, a mother’s benediction set to chords that shimmer like morning dew on the threshold of goodbye. It conjures the scent of ozone and old hymnals, the sight of a figure walking down a long road with everything ahead and everyone behind.

I have witnessed funerals where this song would have said what no eulogy could. I have watched young people leave the hollers and head into a world that does not always love them back—and thought of these lines:

🎶Future like a promise / Your city of gold

🎶Stubborn in your bones and / Jesus in your soul

And of course, the line—

🎶More summer than the California beach can hold”

That one’s a Council keeper. We place it gently alongside our other lyrical relics:

🎶She can wade in a drop of dew”…

🎶I wish I was a headlight on a northbound train / I’d shine my light through cool Colorado rain”…

These are more than phrases. They’re catch-lines—words that catch us when we’re falling out of ourselves. We don’t always know why a particular image strikes like a tuning fork in the soul, but when it does, we hold it. We build around it. We wait for it to glow again.

There is something numinous here, something holy without the help of doctrine. The live performance—tender, unadorned, quietly devastating—reminds us of what studio recordings so often lose: breath, risk, presence, and prayer.

Bluegrass inspires compassion.

At the very least, it makes us feel sorry for those who cannot be moved by a song like this.

If you’ve ever sent someone off—to war, to college, to the afterlife—you’ve already lived this song. And if you haven’t, your time will come. The best music prepares us for what we cannot bear alone.

And at the Council, we take preparation seriously. Whether or not we were ever official Boy Scouts, and many of us were—the motto stuck: Be prepared.

Prepared for partings, for reckonings, for moments when silence needs accompaniment.

Some of us keep matches in the glovebox. Others carry psalms or scapulars in the lining of our coats. But all of us are learning how to walk someone to the edge—and stay behind, humming.

So to all who walk away slow: take the deepest breath, and know—

Our love follows you where you go.

Filed by The Right Reverend James Groady

Council-of-Concerned-Conservationists, Office of Sonic Continuity

Council Addendum (per Department of Directional Metaphysics):

In rare instances, “where you go” may fall outside standard spiritual cartography. If you detect a delay in the arrival of our love, it’s likely due to a soul-based GPS recalibrating across dimensions. Please remain stationary in your yearning until further coordinates are revealed. Council love is never lost—only rerouted.

And as G.K. Chesterton once reminded us: “Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly.” So must we. Even when it hurts.

Lyrics: “My Love Follows You Where You Go”

Written by Liz Rose / Barry Dean / Lori McKenna

Performed by Alison Krauss & Union Station

More wishes than a thousand hearts can count for you

More smiles than a merry-go-round

The sweetest ending to a bedtime story told

My love follows you where you go

More laughter than a kindergarten out to play

One Sunday morning song that says it all

More summer than the California beach can hold

My love follows you where you go

Future like a promise

Your city of gold

Stubborn in your bones and

Jesus in your soul

Seeing you stand there

Starin’ at the unknown

I won’t pretend that it’s not killin’ me

Watchin’ you walk away slow

Take forgiveness, take a prayer, take the deepest breath

And take the answers in your heart

When you wake up and the world is cruel and cold

My love follows you where you go

Future like a promise

Your city of gold

Stubborn in your bones and

Jesus in your soul

Seeing you stand there

Starin’ at the unknown

I won’t pretend that it’s not killin’ me

Watchin’ you walk away slow

More freedom than a field of flowers in the wind

More beauty than a mornin’ after rain

Up the steepest hill, a dark and crooked road

My love follows you where you go