At Mail Call Today

"At Mail Call Today" is a song written by American country music artist Gene Autry and Fred Rose. The two had a successful song writing partnership dating back to 1941, including "Be Honest With Me^[3]", "Tweedle-O-Twill" and "Tears On My Pillow". Rose, with Roy Acuff, founded Acuff-Rose Music Publishing in 1942, and in 1947, would go on to producing Hank Williams.^[4] Autry, after a brief lull in film making due to WWII, would be back to his pre-war output by 1946.^[5]

"At Mail Call Today"
Single by Gene Autry
B-side	"I'll Be Back"
Published	March 14, 1945 (1945-03-14) Western music pub. Co., Hollywood, Calif.[1]
Released	March 1945 (1945-03)[2]
Recorded	December 6, 1944 (1944-12-06)
Studio	CBS Columbia Square Studio, Hollywood, California
Genre	Country & Western
Length	2:49
Label	Okeh 6737
Songwriter(s)	Gene Autry, Fred Rose
Gene Autry singles chronology
"Don't Fence Me In / Gonna Build a Big Fence Around Texas" (1944) "At Mail Call Today" (1945) "Don't Hang Around Me Anymore" (1945)

Background

The song is similar to other contemporary love songs and deals with the possibility of unfaithfulness.^[6] The lyrics describe a young soldier opening a Dear John letter at mail call and learning that the girl he loved from back home has left him. The final words reflect the soldier's despair:

Good luck and God bless you

Wherever you stray

The world for me ended

At Mail Call To-day.^[7]

Chart performance

The song, recorded in December 1944, was Gene Autry's most successful song on the Juke Box Folk charts, peaking at number one for eight weeks with a total of twenty-two weeks on the charts.^[8] The B-side of "At Mail Call Today", a song entitled, "I'll Be Back" peaked at number seven on the same chart.

Charts

Chart (1945)	Peak position
U.S. Billboard Hot Country Singles	1