“Home Thoughts From Abroad” — Clifford T. Ward
Poetry lovers will recognise the reference to the famous Robert Browning poem (although Browning stylised it “Home-Thoughts, From Abroad”). Sadly Clifford T. Ward’s song lives on today only in the memories of those of us old enough to remember listening to the radio in the mid-1970s.
“Home Thoughts From Abroad” was a radio hit, but in chart terms it was only the B-Side to Clifford T. Ward’s 1973 Top Ten hit “Gaye”. While that’s a perfectly decent song, I much prefer the B-Side.
And time has been much kinder to “Home Thoughts From Abroad” than it has been to “Gaye” which, despite being a million-selling record, I haven’t heard for years.
Robert Browning’s poem was very different to the song. It was one of those poems, beloved in Victorian times, which waxed lyrical about what a wonderful place England was (as opposed, say, to the hot countries English colonialists were obliged to live in while they plundered the natural resources of the lands they had conquered from their native populations)…
Oh, to be in England
Now that April’s there…
The poem goes on to talk about the buds forming on the trees and the animals coming back to England after wintering in warmer climes. I don’t want to be too dismissive of Browning’s poem, though. While it’s a bit of a period piece…
