__ Tune – Take Me Back Home, F.W. Cheney

Oh give me a home where the buffaloes roam
And they don’t cut things up to make hash!
Where the boy mops the floors and does all the chores
And looks after the garbage and trash.

Oh give me a home near the old Canidrome
Quite content ‘neath its roof I’ll remain
And I never will scold if it’s hot or it’s cold
Or the weather brings sunshine or rain.

Chorus
Home. Let me go home
Where the beer and the cantaloupes stay
And I will not complain if never again
See my little gray bunk in Chapei.

In my slumbers I dream of strawberries and cream
And the waffles my cook used to make
Of Virginia baked ham and roast chicken and lamb
Real coffee and angel food cake
Then I wake with a jump, I am still in this dump
And it’s time to get something to eat.
So I mutter, “Oh well” as I answer the bell
And come back with a dish of cracked wheat.

I’ve stopped using a comb on my once furry dome
I am needing new specks for my eyes
And my teeth day by day are dropping away
Cause they don’t get enough exercise.

Oh! How gladly I’d change everything within range
For a platter of good Chinese chow
Oh! How gladly I’d swap for a breaded pork chop
All the rice between her and Swatow.

Oh! Let me go back to my seven room shack
Where my cook and my amah abide
Where the blue bottle flies don’t crawl over the pies
And the screens keep the skeeters outside.

For I’m tired of this range and the measles and mange
And I’m weary of standing in line.
And I’d give the whole lot to get out of this spot
And go back to the that old home of mine.