(I’ve Got the Blues For My Kentucky Home)
A Fox-trot novelty song from 1921
Words and music by Clarence Gaskill
The sheet music:
Accompaniment by James Pitt-Payne:
Lyrics
- When a girl or chappie feels unhappy
They have my sympathy
For I feel so lonely by my only
And lonesome as can be
So I just wrote Mother, Sis’ and Brother
And my sweetie knows
That I want to wander ‘way down yonder
Where the blue grass grows
Chorus:
I’ve got the blues for old Kentucky
Oh boy! I feel blue
I long to kiss my Mammy
I miss my Daddy, too
I’ll tell the world I’ve been a rover
Now my roamin’ days are over
I’ve got the blues for my Kentucky home
Counter melody (second time through):
For there is no place like home
No matter where you roam
Be it ever so humble
There’s no place like home
- I can see my Mammy
Uncle Sammy and Aunt Jemima Lee
I can see them smilin’ when they pile in
That chicken fricasse
When my sister Mabel sets the table
She’ll fix a place for me
I’ll be in Kentucky, if I’m lucky
With my family
Patter:
Ev’rybody’s got a certain kind of blues they rave about
We’ve got the “Landlord blues” because he put us out
Then we heard somebody say
They had the “Profiteering Blues”
You get them when you go to buy a pair of shoes
Some folks have got the blues
For good old fashioned beer
A hundred million cases and there’s “One right here”
When you get a certain kind of blues
And feel you want to roam
You’ve got the blues for your
Kentucky Home Sweet Home
Second Patter (from a 78rpm record):
Say you ought to see my sweetie
In my old Kentucky home.
She’s sweeter than the honey from the honeycomb
If you’re lookin’ for some cookin’
That’s the bestest in the land,
You ought to get my mammy round the frying pan.
I used to go to school there with a boy named Bill
And now they say he owns a little private still.
Well I wonder if they’ll greet me
When they meet me at the train.
I’ll make a vow right now to never roam again!
Sung here by Laurence Rubenstein: