Grateful Dead Family Discography: Man Who Wrote Home Sweet Home Never Was a Married Man

The Man Who Wrote Home Sweet Home Never Was a Married Man

Composer: Fleta Jan Brown

The Man Who Wrote Home Sweet Home Never Was a Married Man was played by Jerry and Sarah Garcia at the Tangent in Palo Alto in May 1963. Garcia introduces this song by saying, "We got married last week sometime, this song is fitting for the occasion."

The original version of this song was a vaudeville novelty song written in 1908 by Fleta Jan Brown and called The Party That Wrote 'Home Sweet Home' Never Was A Married Man.

At some point over the ensuing 20 years a rearranged version of the song appeared with the title The Man Who Wrote 'Home Sweet Home' Never Was A Married Man. This was recorded by Charlie Parker (guitar and vocals) and Mack Woolbright (banjo and vocals) toward the end of 1927. Recordings of the rearranged song do not credit Brown as the composer. This song sometimes occurs on recordings with the shorter titles Never Was A Married Man or The Man Who Wrote Home Sweet Home.

Jerry Garcia recordings

Before The Dead, Jerry Garcia, 2018

Other recordings

As The Party That Wrote 'Home Sweet Home' Never Was A Married Man

no info Eddie Morton w/ orchestra, 1910?
The Sound of Vaudeville, Vol. 1, Eddie Morton, 2003

As The Man Who Wrote 'Home Sweet Home' Never Was A Married Man or similar

no info Single (The Man Who Wrote 'Home Sweet Home' Never Was A Married Man / Ticklish Reuben), Charlie Parker and Mack Woolbright, 1928
no info Single (Never Was A Married Man / How Can I Keep My Mind On Driving?), The Three Tobacco Tags, 1938
The New Lost City Ramblers, Vol. 3, The New Lost City Ramblers, 1961
no info Songs Of The Tobacco Tags, Vol. 1, Tobacco Tags, 1984
no info Across the Blue Ridge Mountains, Lost & Found, 1996
North Carolina Banjo Collection, Various Artists (Charlie Parker and Mack Woolbright), 1998
You Ain't Talkin' to Me: Charlie Poole and the Roots of Country Music, Various Artists (Charlie Parker and Mack Woolbright), 2005
Good for What Ails You, Various Artists (Charlie Parker and Mack Woolbright), 2005

Lyrics

The lyrics of the version on the Jerry and Sarah Garcia tape are as follows;

Man comes home from work at night, hungry and he wants to eat
His wife is lying piled in the bed, lying there sound asleep
He gets so mad that he tears his hair, swears and declares that he won't stay there.
And the man that wrote the Home Sweet Home never was a married man
He never had no loving wife to greet him with a frying pan
She'll meet you at the door when you go to come in and knock you down with a rolling pin
And the man that wrote the Home Sweet Home never was a married man.
A man comes home from work at night tired and he goes to bed
Baby's lying there in the cradle screaming loud enough to wake the dead
He sits and rocks for about an hour with never a hand to help prepare.
And the man that wrote the Home Sweet Home never was a married man
He never had no loving wife to greet him with a frying pan
She'll meet you at the door when you go to come in and knock you down with a rolling pin
And the man that wrote the Home Sweet Home never was a married man.