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…