Home, Sweet Home!

"Home, Sweet Home!" is nothing less than the earliest English-language pop evergreen. It is the product of an American dramatist, John Howard Payne, and an English composer, Sir Henry Rowley Bishop, and its history goes back to May 8, 1823, when the song was unveiled at Covent Garden as the centerpiece of the operetta Clari, or the Maid of Milan.

John Howard Payne was a New York City-born actor who had arrived in London during the War of 1812. Payne swiftly established himself as a dramatist and impresario, acceding to the position of manager of the newly rebuilt Covent Garden Opera House in London. In Paris in 1822, Payne witnessed a ballet entitled Clari, or the Promise of Marriage that inspired him to set some verses to its story. Back in England, he encountered Henry Bishop, who through happenstance had seen the same ballet, and together they composed the operetta Clari, or the Maid of Milan. "Home, Sweet Home!" was the featured song in this work, and in keeping with the theatrical customs of the day, it was heard several times during the production. The tune Bishop used was not an original melody; he identified it as a "Sicilian Air" in a book of National Airs he had edited in 1820, and had used it before in his 1816 operetta Who Wants a Wife? "Home, Sweet Home!" was an immediate smash, the sheet music version selling a half-million copies in its first year of release, although Payne and Bishop had to be satisfied with 100 pounds each as payment.

"Home, Sweet Home!" and its popularity continued for decades to come. In the 1850s Jenny Lind, the "Swedish Nightingale," sang it famously on her American tours. Nineteen-year-old Welsh soprano Adelina Patti sang it for President and Mrs. Lincoln in 1863, and they asked for an encore. Patti's singing of the song to the Lincolns helped ease their sorrow over the recent death of their son, Willie. Patti recorded the song in 1906, although her version was not the first on record; by that time it had already appeared in dozens of recorded versions stretching back into the early 1890s.

In the nineteenth century those who loved the song believed it had the power to bring fallen souls back from the brink of sin, and that made it the subject of many a sermon and Sunday school lesson. As "Home, Sweet Home!" creeps toward its third century of existence, it appears that whatever power it may have had to redeem souls destined for hell has vanished. It is seldom heard (outside of Bugs Bunny's version!), although groups that specialize in American folk music still perform it. Nonetheless, most Americans seem to have ingrained in their collective subconscious the key phrase from "Home, Sweet Home!": "Be it ever so humble, there's no place like Home."

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