Home! Sweet Home!

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"Home! Sweet Home!" (also known as "Home, Sweet Home") is a song that has remained well-known for over 150 years. Adapted from the 1823 opera Clari, Maid of Milan, the song's melody was composed by Englishman Sir Henry Bishop with lyrics by American actor and dramatist John Howard Payne. The opening lines

Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam,

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

have become famous. 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 Fantalsie sur deux mélodies anglaises, both of which also use Rule, Britannia. More recently, in 1909, it was pictured to be played in the silent film "The House of Cards" by Thomas A. Edison. 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.

This song is famous in Japan as "Hanyu no Yado" ("A Lodging"). It has been used in such movies as The Burmese Harp and Grave of the Fireflies and is also used at Senri-Chuo Station on the Kita-Osaka Kyuko Railway.

[edit] Popular culture

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

• Needlework portraits of a house with the phrase "Home Sweet Home" have long been an icon.
• The song's melody played in the underscore as Dorothy spoke of "No Place Like Home" near the end of the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz.
• Tom Lehrer's satire of the old southern United States finished with the line, "Be it ever so decadent, there's no place like home."

[edit] References

• 'Home Sweet Home'; sung at western-style weddings in Japan

[edit] External links

• Sheet music for Home, Sweet Home, from Project Gutenberg
• MIDI for Home, Sweet Home, from Project Gutenberg

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v • d • e Patriotic music of the United Kingdom General "Abide with Me" • "Crown Imperial March" • "Eternal Father, Strong to Save" • "Fantasia on British Sea Songs" • "God Save the Queen" • "Heart of Oak" • "Home! Sweet Home!" • "It's a Long Way to Tipperary" • "I Vow to Thee, My Country" • "See the Conquering Hero" • "Nimrod" • "Radio 4 UK Theme" • "Rule, Britannia!" • "Soldiers of the King" • "Song of Liberty" • "The British Grenadiers" • "The Saucy Arethusa" • "Zadok the Priest"  England "Jerusalem" • "Land of Hope and Glory" • "London Pride" • "Rose of England" • "The Roast Beef of Old England" • "There'll Always Be an England"  Scotland "Flower of Scotland" • "Highland Cathedral" • "Scotland the Brave" • "Scots Wha Hae" • "The Bonnie Banks o' Loch Lomond" Northern Ireland "Londonderry Air"  Wales "Cwm Rhondda" • "David of the White Rock" • "Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau" • "Men of Harlech" County Songs "Bro Goth Agan Tasow" (Cornwall) • "Come, all ye jolly Tinner boys" (Cornwall) • "Hail to the Homeland" (Cornwall) • "The Song of the Western Men" (Cornwall) • "On Ilkla Moor Baht 'at" (Yorkshire)

Derek B Scott sings "Home, Sweet Home" http://www.victorianweb.org/mt/parlorsongs/2.html