I was thirteen when I first heard Tom T. Hall’s “The Little Lady Preacher,” released in 1972, though by then it was long past its moment in the sun. In the Netherlands we didn’t get the freshest cut of country radio, but I had a cousin with an affinity for American oddities and a battered cassette deck in his attic. Whenever I visited, we’d take to that drafty little sanctum with a box of tapes and a can of cola, and sometimes the music would uncork something in my chest—something inexpressible, a longing, a thin ache.
The first time I heard “The Little Lady Preacher,” my cousin had gone down to get us chips, and I was alone with the song. It snuck up on me. It’s not one of Hall’s best-known tunes—not like “Harper Valley PTA” or “I Love.” It’s about a tiny woman in a rural parish, standing up to a world that sees her as some sort of novelty, possibly even a freak. The story wends its way through the thanks and the doubts, the gossip and the grace, ending not with triumph, but with the gentle endurance so necessary to life.
Across the brittle hiss and static, Hall’s voice drifted:
*”She wasn’t much to look at, she never was the braggin’ kind
She’d tell you hungry people about the bread and wine
She’d go into the places where most preachers never go
I guess she gave a little more than she would ever know”*
That lyric right there—about going places most preachers never go—hooked in me like a barbed fishhook. At thirteen I was a whisper-voiced, knock-kneed boy, head too full of worries, sweating through my shirts even in the dead of winter. I wasn’t much to look at either. I didn’t have wisdom to offer, just a half-formed sense that the world made promises it seldom kept. And god, I wanted something to believe in.
I didn’t hear another soul mention “The Little Lady Preacher” through all my teenage years—thought maybe I’d dreamt it. But I carried the song with me: I’d play it on lonesome Sunday mornings, when my father’s voice was still hanging in the rafters from the Saturday night before, when the coffee was bitter and strong and sitting on the floor felt safer than risking a question. Those Sundays, I’d let Hall’s lyrics keep me company.
*”She never wore no makeup, she’d just go on home to bed
She’d dream about the children and the happy things they said
She’d pray for gentle waters, just to help the troubled soul
Lord knows she gave a little more than she would ever know”*
I grew up and grew into the trouble. I started singing my own songs, sometimes in English, sometimes in Dutch. The country singer’s pose fit me well: I could hide my terror in a story; I could slip my trembling words into a melody and pass them off as prayer. And yet, even stepping onto a stage in Eindhoven or Den Bosch, I’d catch the gnaw of nerves, a sense I’d been dropped into a place where my voice wasn’t meant to go.
The little lady preacher went into places where others never went. That’s what the song kept telling me. Was it about daring, or simply necessity? Was it faith, or hunger—or the half-mad courage that only comes when you know the world isn’t looking?
By then, my cousin had gone off to Canada, and his attic was turned into a washroom. I taped over old cassettes, made room for new loves, but that song crept back. Every time I felt like I’d been sized up and found wanting, I’d remember how she’d “go into the places where most preachers never go,” and I’d square my shoulders. Maybe my songs would find someone else, somewhere, the way Hall’s found me.
I think I’ve always been haunted by the fear of being small, of not measuring up. I worried I was wasting my time, that I’d grow old and unremarked. The lady preacher in Hall’s song was small too. The “braggin’ kind” she wasn’t; she just got up and did the work, and in her ordinariness, she started a quiet revolution. That struck me as honest. Anyone can be brave in broad strokes; it’s when nobody’s watching that our actions are purest.
Sometimes I play the song for my audience, on evenings when the bar is full of the old men who remember the days of scratchy vinyl and afternoons spent on barges along the Zuid-Willemsvaart. I tell them: you won’t know this one, but you should. It’s Hall at his gentlest. It’s a prayer for the overlooked, the under-wondered-at, the ones who by sheer refusal to give up become saints without ever asking for the title.
*”I wonder if the old folks ever say a prayer for me
‘Cause when I’m tired and weary she’s a gentle sound to me
At times I must admit I felt a little bit like she
‘Cause little lady preacher you mean more than you could be”*
Long after the final chorus hums out, that line echoes in my blood. There are those of us who’ll never top a chart, who’ll never stamp our names in gold. But sometimes, through stubborn caring, through private acts of service, we leave a mark. I wonder if it’s enough. I wonder if it has to be.
Helmond gets cold in February. The city presses in and everyone wears a face of stoic resignation. On mornings like that, it helps to remember all the little lady preachers out there, in churches, in houses, in bars, in silence—those who give more than they’ll know. And to remember, too, that even the smallest song, heard in the right attic at the right time, can be enough to kindle a slow, steady blaze in the heart.
So here’s to Tom T. Hall and his lady preacher, to every soul who showed up, sang out, and loved when nobody bothered to cheer. You mean more than you could be. And to whatever nervous kid, running shaky fingers across the rewind button and listening through the static—know that these songs are for you, too.
Yours,
Kroes den Bock