> Folk Music > Songs > I’ll Take You Home Again Kathleen

I’ll Take You Home Again Kathleen

[ Roud 12907 ; Ballad Index RJ19083 ; Thomas Paine Westendorf, 1875]

Bob Hart sang I’ll Take You Home Again Kathleen at home in Snape, Suffolk, on 8 July 1969 on his Musical Traditions double CD A Broadside. Rod Stradling commented in the album’s liner notes:

Written by Thomas Paine Westendorf in 1875. It was Joseph Locke’s signature tune, and was always being played on the radio when I was young. Alice Messenger in Blaxhall also sang it.

Michelle Burke learned I’ll Take You Home Again Kathleen from her granny and sang it on her 2009 CD Pulling Threads.

Jon Boden sang I’ll Take You Home Again Kathleen as the 30 January 2011 entry of his project A Folk Song a Day.

Lyrics

I will take you home, oh Kathleen dear,
Across the ocean wild and wide.
To where your heart has ever been
Since first you were my blushing bride.
The roses they have left your cheek,
I’ve watched them fade away and die.
Your voice is sad whene’er you speak
And tears are in your loving eye.

Chorus (after each verse):
Oh, I will take you home, Kathleen,
To where your heart shall feel no pain;
To where the fields are fresh and green;
I will take you to your home again.

I know you love me, Kathleen dear,
Your thoughts were ever fond and true.
I always feel, when you are near,
That life holds nothing dear but you.
The smiles that once you gave to me,
I scarcely ever see them now.
Yet many, many times I see
A darkening shadow on your brow.

To that dear land across the sea
My Kathleen shall again return.
And when thine own folk welcome thee
That loving heart will cease to yearn.
Where laughs that little silver stream
That runs beside your mother’s cot,
And brightest rays of sunshine gleam,
Then all your griefs will be forgot.