You can hear this at The Internet Archive:


NO PLACE LIKE HOME
Words and music by Ring Lardner
As recorded by Bert Williams, 1917.

My wife claims that all her folks comes from fighting stock,
And now they're payin' us a endless visit at our 'partment in the mega-block:
Three brothers-in-law, one sister-in-law, one mother-in-law—that's five,
And any one of the quintet could just eat … alive.
They start callin' names when they first get up; that's 'long about two p. m.,
And though I'm strictly neutral, it makes no difference to them.

Now home, home sweet home, that's where the real war is.
'Bout the only peace that I ever see
Is a piece of the furniture flyin' towards me.
They say there's lots of bloodshed in the land across the foam,
But Europe never was so slaughterous as right at my home.

If I'd 'a' knowed that my furniture was gon' be munitions for my wife's folks,
Then I certainly would have bought some wood softer than what we have—a few oaks(?).
Now the ostrich(?) and the French can duck in a trench, and get off the firin' line,
But even our four-dollar davenport is too small for me to hide behind.
My wife is a pacific; she says: "Cut it out, or somebody's gon' get hurt."
And I say: "Yes, madam, I am with thee, and that somebody's first name is Bert."

Now, home sweet home; that's where the real war is.
I know a submarine can't come up on land,
But I gets torpedoed any place I stand.
A man's bound to get missed sometime, in Belgium, France, or Rome,
But for real sharpshooters with your own bric-a-brac, aw, come on around to my home.