Show Me the Way to Go Home

"Show Me the Way to Go Home" is a popular song written in 1925 by the pseudonymous "Irving King" (the English songwriting team James Campbell and Reginald Connelly). The song is said to have been written on a train journey from London by Campbell and Connelly. They were tired from the traveling and had a few alcoholic drinks during the journey, hence the lyrics. The song is in common use in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and North America.

Lyrics

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 can always hear me singing this song
Show me the way to go home.

Old King Cole was a merry old soul, and a merry old soul was he.

He called for his wine and he called for his pipe and he called for his fiddlers three.

When they'd had a high old time all the whole night through,

What was it that King Cole said as his fiddlers flew?

Publication

The music and lyrics were written in 1925 by Jimmy Campbell and Reg Connelly. They self-published the sheet music and it became their first big success, selling 2 million copies and providing the financial basis of their publishing firm, Campbell, Connelly & Co.^[1] Campbell and Connelly published the sheet music and recorded the song under the pseudonym "Irving King".^[2]

The song was recorded by several artists in the 1920s, including radio personalities The Happiness Boys,^[2] Vincent Lopez and his Orchestra,^[2] and the California Ramblers.^[3] Throughout the twentieth into the twenty-first century it has been recorded by numerous artists.

==Popular culture--A parody popular on Midwest American campuses in the 1950s went "Indicate the way to my abode I'm fatigued and I want to retire I imbibed a few about sixty minutes ago And it percolated right through my cerebellum Wherever I may perambulate O'er land or sea or atmospheric vapor You will always hear me rendering this melody Indicate the way to my abode"

Literature

Referenced several times in Norman Mailer's 1948 novel The Naked and the Dead.
George Orwell references the song in his 1934 novel Burmese Days.
Brick, a main character of the Tennessee Williams play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, sings this song toward the end while drinking liquor, leaving out the line "And it's gone right to my head" and the last two lines due to dialogue between other characters.
Albert Wendt references the song, slightly and purposefully revising it in his first novel, Sons For the Return Home (1973)
In the Truman Capote short story, A Christmas Memory (1956), the character, Miss Sook, sings the line "Show me the way to go home."

Film

The first two lines of the song are shown on screen in King Vidor's silent film, "The Crowd" (1928) after a scene where John goes to borrow some liquor from Bert but decides to stay and drink and dance with Bert and the two women at Bert's house instead of going home to spend Christmas Eve with his wife and her family.
This song was the basis for a 1932 Screen Songs animated short by Fleischer Studios.
In the movie Hell Below (1933), it is sung by Lt. JG "Brick" Walters, played by Robert Young (actor).
Famously used in the popular 1975 thriller film Jaws, the song was sung by the three principal characters of Brody (Roy Scheider), Quint (Robert Shaw), and Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss), and their rhythmic thumping of the table attracts the shark.
It is sung by an old man in the jail in A River Runs Through It when Paul is picked up by his brother.
In the Woody Allen film Cassandra's Dream, Terry (Colin Farrell) and Ian (Ewan McGregor) sing this song on the maiden voyage of their boat.
In the opening scene of Piranha 3D (2010), Richard Dreyfuss (reprising/spoofing his character of Matt Hooper from Jaws) listens to this song as well as singing along.
In a stolen car scene from Eat My Dust! (1976) starring Ron Howard.
Sung by the cast in Husbands

Television

In the premiere episode of the World War II TV show Combat!, "Forgotten Front", Albert Paulsen plays a captured German soldier who shows his love for American music by singing this song.
In an episode of Family Guy ("A Fish out of Water"), where Peter and his friends are on his boat hunting a feared fish, they recreate the scene from Jaws and sing this song as they become weary.
The character Harry Hewitt sings a portion of this song in a drunken stupor in an early episode of Coronation Street, transmitted in early 1961.
Davy Jones sings this during the "Listen To The Band/Chaos" segment of The Monkees TV special "33 and a 1/3 Revolutions Per Monkee" (NBC, 1968.)
In an episode of Red Dwarf ("Thanks for the Memory"), the main characters get drunk after finding a planet with a breathable atmosphere, afterwards singing the song while piloting a shuttle back to the ship, altering the words "And it's gone right to my head" with "To celebrate Rimmer's death" (BBC2, 1988.)
In the Babylon 5 episode "Meditations on the Abyss", Garibaldi is singing this to himself while he is very drunk.
In the English dub version of Ghost Stories, one of the main characters uses this song as a chant to trap a ghost.
In a season 3 episode of Lost ("Stranger in a Strange Land"), Sawyer sings this while paddling a boat with Kate back to the main island.
In the final episode of The Heavy Water War, Julie sings this song at a farewell party for the Norwegians.
In the English dub of the Pokémon episode "Showdown at the Po-ké Corral", James says "Show me the way to go home. I'm tired and I want to go to bed."

Football

Supporters of Wimbledon FC / AFC Wimbledon have sung an adapted version reflecting their team spending 25 years away from their Plough Lane home stadium: 'Show Me The Way To Plough Lane'

Recordings

Frank Crumit recorded a version of the song in 1926.^[4]
Julie London recorded a version of the song for her 1968 album Easy Does It.
Jefferson Starship covered the song live during shows of their Acoustic Explorer / Acoustic Shuttlecraft incarnation in 1996–1998.
Emerson, Lake & Palmer included their version of the song on their 1977 album Works Volume II.
Shai Hulud sings the song as a group as the hidden track on their album Hearts Once Nourished with Hope and Compassion.
Bono, the lead singer of the band U2, used the song several times whilst in the guise of the stage character Macphisto in the band's Zoo TV Tour in 1992-93.

References

↑ J. J. Kennedy (4 November 2011). The Man Who Wrote the Teddy Bears' Picnic: How Irish-Born Lyricist and Composer Jimmy Kennedy Became One of the Twentieth Century's Finest Songwriters. AuthorHouse. p. 46. ISBN 978-1-4678-8569-0.
1 2 3 Marvin E. Paymer; Don E. Post (1999). Sentimental Journey: Intimate Portraits of America's Great Popular Songs, 1920-1945. Noble House Publishers. p. 80. ISBN 978-1-881907-09-1.
↑ Howard T. Weiner (6 November 2008). Early Twentieth-Century Brass Idioms: Art, Jazz, and Other Popular Traditions. Scarecrow Press. p. 115. ISBN 978-0-8108-6246-3.
↑ "Frank Crumit Collection 1925-1934 (COMPLETE)". 78 RPMs and Cylinder Recordings. Internet Archive. Retrieved 15 February 2015.

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