A slow twelve-bar blues, it is one of Slim's best-known songs and reached number seven in the Billboard R&B chart in 1951.

[1] "Mother Earth" features an unusual descending chromatic figure and an often-quoted chorus:[2] Don't care how great you are, don't care what you're worth When it all ends up you got to, go back to mother earth A Billboard review in 1951 described it as "Blues moralizer, with group harmonizing in back of Slim's chanting, [having] a haunting effect, but [it] is on the tedious side".

A 6:16 minute version of "Mother Earth", featuring vocals and piano by Tracy Nelson, is included on their 1968 debut album Living with the Animals.

[8] In an AllMusic album review, Richie Unterberger described it as one of the tunes "showcas[ing] the then-unknown War's funky fusion, and Burdon's still-impressive vocals, but suffer from a lack of focus and substance.

"[8] Two days before his death, Jimi Hendrix joined the band as an accompanist for the song at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club in London, making "Mother Earth" one of his last public performances.