Home! Sweet Home!

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about the popular 19th century song. For other meanings, see Home Sweet Home

Cover of the sheet music for a 1914 publication of "Home, Sweet Home"

"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, Maid of Milan, the song's melody was composed by Englishman Sir Henry Bishop with lyrics by 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 Fantaisie sur deux mélodies anglaises, both of which also use "Rule, Britannia".

More recently, in 1909, it was featured as being 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 "Hanyū no Yado" ("埴生の宿"^?) ("A Lodging"). It has been used in such movies as The Burmese Harp and Grave of the Fireflies. It is also used at Senri-Chuo Station on the Kita-Osaka Kyuko Railway.

Home! Sweet Home!

Problems listening to this file? See media help.

[edit] Popular culture

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

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'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."
The song is featured in the film Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), when Jonathon first speaks with his Aunts.
The song is featured in the film "Amityville II: The Possession" (1982).