Written for the The Public Song Project from US radio station WNYC and the Internet Archive in May 2026, What Is Home Without You? is a reworking of What is home without a mother by Alice Hawthorne, published by H. De Marsan, Publisher, 54 Chatham Street, N. Y back in the 1800s.
The project invited people to record their own musical adaptation of a work in the public domain, and I stumbled across the song sheet for What is home without a mother in the America Singing: Nineteenth-Century Song Sheets collection in the Library of Congress.
I found myself immediately engaged with the idea of 'what is a home without (a certain person)'. It's both universal and also highly personal. Who immediately comes to your mind if you broaden the song to 'you' instead of mother?
I started with the idea of 'What is home without you' and looked at what I would need to rework. I like so many of the original phrases used in the song, so I've tried to keep a lot of them intact, but by re-focusing the song around loss and grief in a household more generally and not to just that of a mother, I needed to rearrange a few lines and change a few words.
The song sheet I found only contained the words. I decided not to look too hard for the original music as I knew I wasn't going to do a cover, but a re-working instead. The chords and the melody came together easily almost immediately.
The song makes me feel as though it's easy for me to make the connection with people over 150 years in the past, who it seems also used songwriting to either explore or express grief at the death of a loved one.
I think there are many things of interest to be discovered in the items that come into the public domain from the past - some seem strange, or weird, and some seem like they could have been created yesterday. I like how a few minor tweaks to the original song means that what I have created feels relevant here and now, to me and many people I know, and perhaps more widely.
As a songwriter, inspiration comes from many places. Using the public domain as a starting point is a fun thing to do. I think songwriters are always looking to connect the personal to the general - can I connect this thing in me with the wider world - and seeing how people in the past approached issues and ideas that are universal is truly inspirational.
I also used the original design on the song sheet in the artwork created for the release, taking the elaborate border from the original and incorporating it into the header of the album art.
Lyrics
What is home without you
What are all the joys we meet
Without your loving smile no longer
Greets the coming of your feet
The days seem long
The nights are drear
Time rolls slowly on
Oh how few are the pleasures
Now, now you're gone
things we prize are first to vanish
Hearts we love ot pass away
Old, old hearts may have their sorrows
Grieves the heart from day to day
We miss your hold
Your fond and earnest care
And oh how dark is life around us
What is home without your there
What is home without your there
What is home without your there
CREDITS
ALBUM ART
The album art was modified from "What is home without a mother. By Alice Hawthorne. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/amss-as114820/.
SOFTWARE
PLUGINS
- Ardour Community Plugins
- Auburn Sounds
- David Robillard
- DISTRHO
- Guitarix team
- LSP LV2
- Matt Tytel
- Michael Willis
- Robin Gareus
THANKS
Thanks to: LJK, and Anyone who has ever made a linux audio plugin
Released: 2026-05-10