From the sheet music at the UCLA Archive of Popular American Music - Click for a PDF.


TAKE ME BACK TO DEAR OLD BLIGHTY
Words and music by A. J. Mills, Fred Godfrey & Bennett Scott, ©1916.

1. Jack Dunn, son of a gun, over in France today,
Keeps fit doing his bit up to his eyes in clay.
Each night after a fight to pass the time along,
He's got a little gramophone that plays this song:

CHORUS: Take me back to dear old Blighty.
Put me on the train for London town.
Take me over there; drop me anywhere,
Liverpool, Leeds or Birmingham; well, I don't care!
I should love to see my best girl.
Cuddling up again we soon should be.
Whoa!
Tiddley iddley ighty,
Hurry me home to Blighty,
Blighty is the place for me.

2. Bill Spry started to fly up in an aeroplane,
In France taking a chance wish'd he was down again.
Poor Bill feeling so ill yell'd out to pilot Brown,
"Steady a bit, yer fool! We're turning upside down!"

3. Jock Lee, having his tea, says to his pal MacFayne,
"Look, chum! Apple and plum! It's apple and plum again!
Same stuff! Isn't it rough? Fed up with it I am.
Oh! For a pot of Aunt Eliza's raspb'ry jam!

4. One day Micky O'Shea stood in a trench somewhere,
So brave, having a shave and trying to part his hair.
Mick yells, dodging the shells and lumps of dynamite,
"Talk of the Crystal Palace on a firework night!"


[Famously recorded by Florrie Forde.]