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Home Sweet Home
Breakdown and Song- Words by John Howard Payne, music by Henry Rowley Bishop.
ARTISTS: Original lyrics from Payne & Bishop;
CATEGORY: Fiddle and Instrumental Tunes DATE: Published 1823.
RECORDING INFO: Bird, Elmer. Home Sweet Home, Windy Ridge WR-10002, LP (1982), cut#B.03. Boarman, Andrew F. Mountain State Music, June Appal JA 0025, LP (1978), cut# 2. Breaux Freres. Anthology of American Folk Music, Smithsonian/Folkways SFW 40090, CD( (1997), cut# 39. Breaux Freres. Cajun, Vol. 1, Abbeville Breakdown, Columbia C 46220, LP (1990), cut# 8. Burke, John. Fancy Pickin' and Plain Singing, Kicking Mule KM 202, LP (1977), cut#A.04. Carriere Brothers. Cajun Fiddle Styles, Vol 1. The Creole Tradition, Arhoolie 5031, LP (1983), cut#B.07. Cotten, Elizabeth. When I'm Gone. Elizabeth Cotton, Vol. 3, Folkways FA 3537, LP (1979), cut#A.07. Dillard, Douglas. Banjo Album, Together STT 1003, LP (197?), cut#A.04. Etheridge, Isabel. Between the Sound and the Sea, Folkways FS 3848, LP (1977), cut#A.02a. Fincham, Reva. West Virginia Hills, Augusta Heritage AHR 011, Cas (1992), cut#2.07. Flatt & Scruggs & the Foggy Mountain Boys. Foggy Mountain Banjo, Columbia LE 10043, LP (196?), cut# 2. Reno, Don;, Red Smiley and the Tennessee Cut Ups. Bluegrass Hall of Fame, Hollywood HT 105, Cas (1987), cut# 8. Skillet Lickers. Corn Licker Still in Georgia, Voyager VRLP 303, LP (197?), cut#A.19.
SOURCES: RJackson-19CPop, pp. 80-82, "Home! Sweet Home!" . Gilbert, p. 87, (no name; a partial text of a parody). Krythe 3, pp. 40-61, "Home, Sweet Home". Silber-FSWB, p. 254, "Home, Sweet Home". Fuld-WFM, pp. 274-275, "Home! Sweet Home!"
NOTES: The home that Payne wrote of was a little cottage in East Hampton, Long Island. The song was first heard in London in his play "Clari" in 1823. The air had appeared in an early collection of Bishop's as a Sicilian tune. The theme of the song and the beauty of the melody have given it world-wide fame. Most bluegrass groups play “Home Sweet Home” as an instrumental.
LYRICS:
Mid Pleasures and palaces though I may roam,
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home;
A charm from the sky seems to hallow us there,
Which, seek thro' the world, is ne'er met with elsewhere.
Home! Sweet, sweet home!
There's no place like home.
There's no place like home.
An exile from home, spendor dazzles in vain,
Oh, give me my lowly thatched cottage again;
The birds singing gaily, that come at my call;
Give me them, with that peace of mind, dearer than all.
CHORUS
To thee, I'll return, overburdened with care,
The heart's dearest solace will smile on me there.
No more from that cottage again will I roam,
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home.
I gaze on the moon as I tread the drear wild,
And feel like my mother now thinks of her child.
As she looks on that moon from our own cottage door,
Thro' the woodbine whose fragrance shall cheer me no more.
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