Home Sweet Home: In 1840s the wife of celebrated English composer Sir Henry Bishop, the singer ran off with a French harp player, Bochsa. They landed when Australia was attracting people from all over the world in search of gold and musicians pursued the great populations of miner, some of whom had money for ticket to performances. In 1855, in Sydney, where concerts were given by both, but Bochsa died in December. (Anna Bishop, by Richard Davis is a good read and details of Anna’s amazing adventures that included shipwreck and survival on a coral atoll.) Her husband, Sir Henry Bishop, composed one of the great standard parlour songs of the Victorian era, ‘Home Sweet Home’. It was a favourite as an encore for the Australian diva, Dame Nellie Melba, who sings it here. More Melba can be heard on Nellie Melba’s Songs and Arias: 1904-1921 (ScreenSound, Australia 2002) or the first Melba CD, Dame Nellie Melba: from the Hogarth Melba Collections. (Larrikin Records with NFSA) 1988.
CHORUS:
It’s a grand old song is Home Sweet Home,
Wherever you may be.
It’s a song that’s heard in every part,
A song that reaches every heart.
But when you’re feeling sad and lonely,
At night when the shadows fall,
What the use of singing ‘Home, Sweet Home’
When you have no home at all.
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!
Chorus…
An exile from home splendour 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
Chorus…
Chorus:It
It’s a grand old song is Home Sweet Home,
Wherever you may be.
It’s a song that’s heard in every part,
A song that reaches every heart.
But when you’re feeling sad and lonely,
At night when the shadows fall,
What the use of singing ‘Home, Sweet Home’
When you have no home at all.
Home Sweet Home 2: In 1910 Australian vaudevillian, Billy Williams, came home from lucrative career in the UK, spending time with family in Melbourne and touring to capital cities. He was very known, having made recordings as early as 1902, his singing developing as the sound recording industry developed. All of his cylinders and discs were acoustically recorded and it is difficult to find a singer from his time who sounds better in what has recording survived. It was a comparatively brief recording career… 1902-1915. He died in 1915 of septic prostatitis in London. Some of the songs he brought with him from the UK were designed to attract an Australian audience and they were enthusiastically purchased. ‘The Kangaroo Hop’ and ‘St Kilda’ adding to existing favourites already well-known here, song such ‘When Father Papered the Parlour’ and ‘The Taximeter Car’. The first verse of ‘It’s a Grand old Song’ firmly established a setting and a mood, unusual in Billy’s songs, sentimental, nostalgic rather than broad comedy. More of Billy’s remarkable recorded voice can be heard on Australia’s Billy Williams: The Man in the Velvet Suit, Move Records (with the NFSA), 1989.
Jack was as lonely as he could be.
Out in the big Australian bush was he.
Jack sang a song to his pals all around
Tear drops in every eye could be found.
One said to him ‘We are mile from home!’
Far from the dear ones, across the foam.
Sing “Home Sweet Home” to the boys round’ he cried
‘I’d like to oblige you’, Jack softly replied.
CHORUS…