What is Home Without Love?

DESCRIPTION: A lonely rich man, passing a cottage window, sees a happy husband, wife, and baby. He weeps, "What is a home without baby To kiss, to tease and adore...." Alone in a mansion, with the wife who married him for his money, he repeats his lament
AUTHOR: Charles K. Harris
EARLIEST DATE: 1900 (copyright)
KEYWORDS: loneliness marriage baby children family husband wife
FOUND IN: US(So)
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Rorrer-RamblingBlues-LifeAndSongsOfCharliePoole, p. 82, "What Is Home Without Babies?" (1 text)
ArkansasWoodchopper, pp. 8-10, "What Is a Home Without Love" (1 text, 1 tune)
ADDITIONAL: Charles K. Harris, _Charles K. Harris's Complete Songster_. F. J. Drake, 1903 (available on Google Books), p. 156, "What is Home Without Love?" (1 text)
Roud #15947 and 12395
RECORDINGS:
Arkansas Woodchopper [pseud. for Luther Ossenbrink], "What is a Home Without Love" (Conqueror 7881, 1931)
Boone County Entertainers, "What Is Home Without Babies" (Supertone 9492, 1929)
Loman D. Cansler, "What Is a Home Without Love?" (on Cansler1)
Roy Harvey, "What Is Home Without Love" (Columbia, unissued, 1927)
Roy Harvey & The North Carolina Ramblers, "What Is Home Without Babies" (Brunswick 268, 1928) (Paramount 3267, 1931)
Monroe Brothers, "What Is Home Without Love" (Montgomery Ward M-4746, 1935; Bluebird B-6363, 1936)
Charlie Poole and the North Carolina Ramblers, "What Is Home Without Babies" (Columbia 15307-D, 1928)
Red Fox Chasers, "What Is Home Without Babies" (Supertone 9492, 1929)
SAME TUNE:
Reoording: Howard Dixon & Frank Gerald (The Rambling Duet) "Woman's Answer to 'What Is Home Without Love'" (Bluebird B-7450, 1938)
NOTES [123 words]: Again, Cansler implies that this is in Randolph or Belden, but we don't seem to have indexed it, or I haven't found it. - PJS
It's not in Randolph, at least, and if it's in Belden-BalladsSongsCollectedByMissourFolkloreSociety, it's under an odd title and uses an unusual first stanza. When I indexed Rorrer-RamblingBlues-LifeAndSongsOfCharliePoole, I initially omitted the song because I couldn't believe such a piece of slop was traditional.
Edward Foote Gardner, Popular Songs of the Twentieth Century: Volume I -- Chart Detail & Encyclopedia 1900-1949, Paragon House, 2000, p. 253, estimates that this was the ninth-most-popular song in America in May 1900 (#1 for the year being James Thornton's "When You Were Sweet Sixteen"). - RBW
Last updated in version 6.5
File: RcWIAHWL

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