Although many consider this song to be a spiritual song, it is really about a dream Paul McCartney had about his mom. McCartney was struggling emotionally as the Beatles were working on the follow up album to “The White Album”.  He began to sense that the band was breaking up.  During this time his mother, who was deseased,came to him in a dream and said, “Let it be.” He awoke from the dream feeling great and went right to the piano and wrote the song.  It was the title song of the last album The Beatles made together.

John Lennon wrote this song about his mom with a little cross over to Yoko Ono He wrote it during his time in India.  Julia was Lennon’s mother’s name.  The lyrics“Ocean child” refer to Yoko Ono who’s name literally means “Child of the sea” in Japanese which is echoed in the lyric “Oceanchild, calls me.”

 “Dear Mama” released on February 21, 1995 as the lead single Me Against the World (1995). The song is a tribute to his mother, Afeni Shakur. In the song, details Shakur’s childhood of poverty and his mother’s addiction to crack cocaine, but argues that his love and deep respect for his mother supersede bad memories.

“Dear Mama” has been consistently ranked among the best of its genre, appearing on numerous “greatest” lists. In 2010, the song was added to the National Recording Registry in the Library of Congress, who deemed it a work that is “culturally, historically, or aesthetically important, and/or inform or reflect life in the United States.” In a press release, the organization called the song “a moving and eloquent homage to both the murdered rapper’s own mother and all mothers struggling to maintain a family in the face of addiction, poverty and societal indifference.”

Dolly Parton wrote Coat of Many Colors about a coat her mother made for her.  The coast is preserved and displayed in her museum at Dollywood.  She recorded the song in April 1971, making it the title song for her Coat of Many Colors album. The song reached #4 on the U.S. country singles charts.In 2012 Parton’s recording was added to the Library of Congress’s National Recording Registry list of sound recordings that “are culturally, historically, or aesthetically important, and/or inform or reflect life in the United States.”

Jimi Hendrix wrote “Angel” in reference to a dream he had about his mother, Lucille Hendrix née Jeter, when he was a child; speaking in a December 1967 interview conducted by Meatball Fulton, Hendrix explained the inspiration behind the song by describing the dream as follows:

“ My mother was bein’ carried away on this camel. And there was a big caravan, she’s sayin’, ‘Well, I’m gonna see you now,’ and she’s goin’ under these trees, you could see the shade, you know, the leaf patterns across her face when she was goin’ under … She’s sayin’, ‘Well, I won’t be seein’ you too much anymore, you know. I’ll see you.’ And then about two years after that she dies, you know. And I said, ‘Yeah, but where are you goin’?’ and all that, you know. I remember that. I will always remember that. I never did forget … there are some dreams you never forget.

“Mother and Child Reunion”, Paul Simon

“I Wish”, Stevie Wonder

“Oh Mother”, Christina Aguilera