Home! Sweet Home!

This article is about the 19th century song. For other uses, see Home Sweet Home (disambiguation).

"Home, Sweet Home"
Cover of the sheet music for a version published in 1914.
Song

Sheet music version.

"Home! Sweet Home!" (also known as "Home, Sweet Home") is a song that has remained well known for over 150 years. Adapted from American actor and dramatist John Howard Payne's 1823 opera Clari, or the Maid of Milan, the song's melody was composed by Englishman Sir Henry Bishop with lyrics by Payne. Bishop had earlier published a more elaborate version of this melody, naming it 'A Sicilian Air', but he later confessed to having written himself.

The song's lyrics are:

Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam

Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home

A charm from the skies seems to hallow us there

Which seek thro' the world, is ne'er met elsewhere

Home! Home!

Sweet, sweet home!

There's no place like home

There's no place like home!

An exile from home splendor dazzles in vain

Oh give me my lowly thatched cottage again

The birds singing gaily that came at my call

And gave me the peace of mind dearer than all

Home, home, sweet, sweet home

There's no place like home, there's no place like home!

When the song was published separately, it quickly sold 100,000 copies. The publishers made a considerable profit from it, net £2100 in the first year, and the producer of the opera did well. Only Payne did not really profit by its success. "While his money lasted, he was a prince of bohemians", but had little business sense.[6] In 1852 Henry Bishop 'relaunched' the song as a parlour ballad, and it became very popular in the United States throughout the American Civil War and after.

As soon as 1827 this song was quoted by Swedish composer Franz Berwald in his Konzertstück for Bassoon and Orchestra (middle section, marked Andante). Gaetano Donizetti used the theme in his Opera Anna Bolena (1830) Act 2, Scene 3 as part of Anna’s Mad Scene to underscore her longing for her childhood home. It is also used with Sir Henry Wood's Fantasia on British Sea Songs and in Alexandre Guilmant's Fantasy for organ Op. 43, the Fantaisie sur deux mélodies anglaises, both of which also use "Rule, Britannia!". In 1857 composer/pianist Sigismond Thalberg wrote a series of variations for piano (op. 72) on the theme of Home! Sweet Home!.

In 1909, it was featured in the silent film The House of Cards, an Edison Studios film. In the particular scene, a frontier bar was hurriedly closed due to a fracas. A card reading "Play Home Sweet Home" was displayed, upon which an on-screen fiddler promptly supplied a pantomime of the song. This may imply a popular association of this song with the closing hour of drinking establishments.

The song was reputedly banned from being played in Union Army camps during the American Civil War for being too redolent of hearth and home and so likely to incite desertion.

The song is famous in Japan as "Hanyū no Yado" ("埴生の宿") ("My Humble Cottage"). It has been used in such movies as The Burmese Harp and Grave of the Fireflies. It is also used at Senri-Chūō Station on the Kita-Osaka Kyūkō Railway.

Popular culture

Key phrases from the song have been a cultural staple for several generations.

• It can be briefly heard in the musical The King and I, sung by the royal children.
• The very popular play, The Drunkard (1844), ends with a tableau of the entire company (except the villain) singing it, to the hero's flute accompaniment.
• The song was very popular with troops on both sides of the American Civil War.
• It was a particular favorite of President Abraham Lincoln and his wife, who requested it in an 1862 performance at the White House by opera singer Adelina Patti.
• Needlework portraits of a house with the phrase "Home Sweet Home" have long been an icon.
• The song was sung by Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer, George "Spanky" McFarland, Billie "Buckwheat" Thomas, and Eugene "Porky" Lee in the 1937 Our Gang (Little Rascals) short comedy Night 'n' Gales.
• Oscar-winning composer-arranger Herbert Stothart uses the melody as a counterpoint to the strains of Harold Arlen’s “Over The Rainbow” in underscoring the closing scene of the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz.
• The song is played at the Christmas Ball in Meet Me in St. Louis as Esther (Judy Garland) dances with her grandfather.
• Tom Lehrer's satire of the old southern United States, "I Wanna Go Back To Dixie" finishes with the line, "Be it ever so decadent, there's no place like home."
• The song is featured in the film Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), when Jonathon first speaks with his Aunts.
• Some of the dogs at the pound in Walt Disney's Lady and the Tramp (1955) howl this song.
• The song is beautifully sung in an episode of "The Adventures of Jim Bowie" titled "Home Sweet Home" The whole plot of the episode, first aired on January 31st, 1958 centers around Bowie trusting a gambler to sell tickets to a benefit for the actor/songwriter John Howard Payne.
• The Thalberg version of the piece is played by the main character in the film The Getting of Wisdom (film) (1978), its florid style demonstrating her passionate nature.
• The song is featured in the film Amityville II: The Possession (1982).
• An instrumental version of the song was used as the theme music for the 1980s British comedy series No Place Like Home.
• The melody was incorporated into the score of Billy Madison (1996).
• The song earned longevity as a Christmas ballad when it was recorded by Glen Campbell in his 1968 Christmas album as "There's No Place Like Home". The lyric was re-written by Sammy Cahn and Gary Bruce.
• "Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam, Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home" quoted in Walt Disney's "Summer Magic" July 7, 1963

External links

• Sheet music and MIDI for Home, Sweet Home, from Project Gutenberg
• Text of the poetry from ompersonal.com.ar
• Derek B Scott sings “Home, Sweet Home” (1823) from victorianweb.org
• 'Home Sweet Home' from seiyaku.com
• The short film A NATION SINGS (1963) is available for free download at the Internet Archive.

6 [Charles H. Sylvester, "John Howard Payne and 'Home, Sweet Home' ", Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6, p. 221 (published 1922), The Project Gutenberg eBook]