Show Me the Way to Go Home

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"Show Me the Way to Go Home" is a folk song and drinking tune. It was made famous with its 1925 adaptation by the British songwriting team of L. James Campbell and Reginald Connelly, working under the pseudonym of "Irving King". It tells the story of an intoxicated bar patron trying to go home after a night of drinking. It is believed of English origin, but has spread to Ireland and Canada, where it is also commonly sung.

The song can be modified to be used in swing dancing.

[edit] Lyrics

The main verse is as follows:

Show me the way to go home,

I'm tired and I want to go to bed.

I had a little drink about an hour ago,

And it's gone right to my head.

Wherever I may roam,

On land or sea or foam.

You will always hear me singing this song:

Show me the way to go home.

The second verse is made up of synonyms of the first. The words seem to vary on different versions - here's one version.

Indicate the way to my abode

I'm fatigued and I want to retire

I had a spot of beverage sixty minutes ago

And it went right to my cranium

Where ever I may perambulate

On land, or sea or atmospheric vapour

You can always hear me crooning the melody

Indicate the way to my abode

[edit] Popular Culture

• It is included on Emerson Lake & Palmer's album, Works Volume II.

• Bono sings the first four lines in his MacPhisto alter-ego during the Zoo TV: Live From Sydney video.

• The three shark-hunting protagonists of the 1975 horror film Jaws sing this song while waiting out the night on their small boat.

• In an episode of Family Guy where Peter and his buddies are on his boat hunting a feared fish, they recreate the scene from Jaws and sing this song as they become weary.

• The Red Dwarf episode "Thanks for the Memory" had the characters singing a slightly modified version of the song after partying on a small planetoid.

• Brick, a main character of the Tennessee Williams play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, sings this song toward the end while drinking leaving out the line "And it's gone right to my head." and the last two lines. due to dialogue between other characters.

• In the video game Fable it is possible to give beers to other people. If the player decides to get the weapons smith drunk, he will stumble about muttering random phrases, one of which is the first verse of "Show Me the Way to Go Home".

• Dave Brubeck played an instrumental jazz adaptation of the tune as the encore of his 2002 concert at Starbucks, Park Avenue South.

• In an episode of the Sci-fi show Babylon 5, "Meditations on the Abyss", Michael Garibaldi sings this while drunk.

• In an episode of the US dubbed version of the Pokemon anime, James from Team Rocket says the first two lines of this song, but it's disguised as normal dialogue.

• Show Me the Way to Go Home is the title of a novel by Simmons Jones, published by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill in 1992.

• In an episode of Lost, the character Sawyer sings the song while paddling a boat back to the main island.

• An old man in the drunk tank sings this song in A River Runs Through It(1992).

• The new jersey ska/reggae band Hub City Stompers plays part of this song in their song "Fuck You, You're Irish".