The Little Girl
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| ""The Little Girl"" | ||
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| Single by John Michael Montgomery (featuring Alison Krauss & Dan Tyminski) | ||
| from the album 'Brand New Me' | ||
| Released | August 19, 2000 | |
| Format | CD single | |
| Recorded | 2000 | |
| Genre | Country music | |
| Label | Atlantic Records | |
| Writer(s) | Harley Allen | |
| Chart positions | ||
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US Country - #1 |
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| John Michael Montgomery (featuring Alison Krauss & Dan Tyminski) singles chronology | ||
| "Nothing Catches Jesus By Surprise" (2000) | "The Little Girl" (2000) | "That's What I Like About You" (2001) |
The Little Girl is a 2000 song performed by American country music artist John Michael Montgomery, from John Michael's 2000 album Brand New Me. The song features Alison Krauss and Dan Tyminski (members of bluegrass group Alison Krauss & Union Station) on harmony vocals.
The song is based on an urban legend (as referenced by Snopes.com). Songwriter Harley Allen received a copy of the story from his brother, and notwithstanding that the legend has never been confirmed or disproven, Allen was moved to tears and wrote the song in under 15 minutes.
The song tells of an unnamed young girl born to a set of dysfunctional parents – Dad was an alcoholic while Mom was a drug addict. The couple regularly fought (usually with the girl hiding behind the couch, seeing everything), showed her no attention or affection, and (the first lines of the song, and important to the legend) "Her parents never took the young girl to church/Never spoke of His name/Never read her His word".
One evening the fight escalated to the worst possible outcome – the girl witnessed the murder-suicide of her parents (Dad killed Mom, then himself).
"Some people from the city" (though not specifically mentioned, most likely workers from Child Protective Services) then took the girl to another home. But this home would be the exact opposite of her old one – the new family didn't fight, showed the clearly love-starved girl attention and affection, and were regular churchgoers.
On the girl's first visit to church, while in Sunday School she would notice on the wall a picture of Jesus hanging on the cross. She commented that she did not know who the man was, but knew that he had to have come down from the cross – as she recognized the man as the one who comforted her while she witnessed her parent's violent deaths.
