I'll take you home again, Kathleen

An old loved song came rushing by. All because I wanted to listen to Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E minor, 2nd movement ...


"I'll Take You Home Again, Kathleen" is a popular song written by Thomas P. Westendorf in 1875. The music is loosely based on Felix Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E Flat Minor Opus 64 Second Movement. In spite its German-American origins, it is widely mistaken to be an Irish ballad. In fact, for many years it's what I thought too.

Westendorf, then teaching at the reform school known as the Indiana House of Refuge for Juvenile Offenders in Hendricks County, Indiana, wrote it – apparently – for his wife, whose name was Jennie, ot Kathleen. In a way, it's a kind of "answer" to a popular ballad of the time, "Barney, Take Me Home Again," composed by Westendorf’s close friend, George W. Brown, writing under the nom de plume of George W. Persley.

Melancholy... full of memories.  




Video Credit:

 Jim Finnegan - I'll Take You Home Again Kathleen. Uploaded by mihaireal. Accessd April 26, 2020

Resources: 

I'll Take You Home Again, Kathleen. Wikipedia. Accessed April 26, 2020. 

(c) April 2020. Tel. Autumn Reflections. All rights reserved.