Here's my transcription from the recording at The Internet Archive:


THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE HOME (WHEN THERE'S NO PLACE ELSE TO GO).
Words, Harry Williams. Music, Nat D. Ayer.
New York, Detroit: Jerome H. Remick & Co, [1912]
As sung by Billy Murray, Victor-17335, 1913.

1. Welcome brother, welcome; and how's the merry (or "married"?) life?
So you're the jay who went away and found yourself a wife!
Sorry, brother, sorry, but still you've got your health.
No use, old boy, to wish you joy, but here's that you have wealth.
And all you fellows there are just in time.
We'll make a dollar look just like a dime.

CHORUS: Come on, boys! Come on, boys!
We've got the time and the dough.
Come on, joys! Come on, noise!
Don't make the party slow,
For it's always fair weather
When fellows leave their wives and get together,
But there is no place like home
When there's no place else to go.

2. Thank you, brother, thank you; I'm glad now I'm alive.
I've had about one evening out since eighteen-sixty-five.
I was thinking, brother, the Civil War was done,
But in that year I met my dear and war had just begun.
I haven't won a battle in my life,
And that's why I retreated from my wife.