Lyrics below are taken from the sheet music, which can be seen at York University.

You can hear the Happiness Boys (Jones and Hare) sing this song at the Internet Archive. As usual, they make a few small changes in the lyrics so that it works as a dialog, and they add some patter, which I have not notated.


I WOULD RATHER BE ALONE IN THE SOUTH
Words and music by Norman J. Vause, ©1925.

1. I'm Dixie bound
When payday comes around.
Don't try to stop me now.
Straight as a dart
Into Dixie's heart—
I can't be satisfied anywhere else somehow.

CHORUS: I would rather, very much rather, be alone in the south
Than blue and down in the mouth
Where the crowds and lights are all the sights to see;
And I would sooner be a communer with the birds and the bees.
That's why I state, I can hardly wait for that choo-choo train.
I've got a mammy there, a sweetie there, a little Ford runabout;
But if I had no one beneath that southern sun, I would stand up and shout
That I would rather, very much rather, be alone in the south,
For the south is home sweet home to me.

BRIDGE: Southern days, southern ways, southern cotton and corn—
Southern cooks don't need books down where I was born
Southern sighs 'neath southern skies get my brain in a whirl
Southern tunes 'neath southern moons and a kiss from my best girl (that's heaven). CHORUS

2. When shadows fall,
It's then I hear the call.
There is no place like home.
I'm here to say
I'll be here to stay.
Homeland, I'm coming now, never no more to roam.