The story behind the JAWS song 'Show Me The Way To Go Home'

You’re the Chief of Police, you can do anything you want. Except right now, you’re stuck on a leaky old tub, bobbing about in the Atlantic with an rich kid oceanographer and the local Ahab who are comparing scars and swigging back homemade booze that could strip barnacles off the hull.

On top of this, somewhere out there in the darkness, there’s a shark.

A big one.

A man eater.

If all else fails, refusing to accept the blinding reality of a situation and pickling everything in flagons of lethal grog - I mean, why not?

I think we can all agree, wanting to go home is a reasonable feeling to have in this situation but in the end Brody realises that the Orca is as good as its gonna get, he might as well join in the singing with these two maniacs - after all, what’s the alternative? Wondering how long it takes for a Great White to digest a human adult male?

Nope, the singing’ll take your mind off it.

But the song, where does it come from? Who wrote it? And is there any other reason it was chosen for the movie JAWS?

Well, let’s see…

‘Show Me the Way to Go Home’ was written in 1925 by Jimmy Campbell and Reg Connelly, an English songwriting duo who allegedly had one or two drinks whilst on a long train journey and the song was born.

The first recording of the song was by Frank Crumit in 1926. Crumit had a string of hit comedy songs during his life with some of the best titles ever! ‘The Prune Song’, ‘There’s no one with Endurance Like the Man who Sells Insurance’, ‘I Wish that I’d been Born in Borneo’ and ‘What Kind of Noise Annoys an Oyster.’ He also holds the honour of being the first person to play the ukulele on Broadway. In 1929 he released a song that even seemed to foretell the future. ‘Tale of the Ticker’ was a tune that shed light on the goings of the Stock Market and how it was a risky business. Just a few months later, Crumit was of course proved right as Wall Street crashed spectacularly.

The song received many reworkings and recordings over the years including versions by, amongst others:

English Prog-Rockers, ‘Emerson, Lake and Palmer’.

The trio recorded a cover of the Campbell & Connelly tune for their 1977 album ‘Works Volume II’. Just two years after the song appeared in JAWS, it was the last track on Side Two in an album that some derided as something of a mish-mash of outtakes and oddities and while it’s possible the inclusion of the song can be seen as a cash-in to the movie, who can really say? Perhaps it was simply an old favourite of the band’s.

Julie London recorded it in 1968 for her album ‘Easy Does It’. Prior to this in the 1950s, London had starred in films with big name stars like Rock Hudson, Robert Mitchum, Gary Cooper and John Cassavetes.

Jefferson Starship performed the song live during their shows during their, ‘Acoustic Explorer/Acoustic Shuttlecraft’ between 1996-1998.

Next up were Hardcore Punk/Metalcore band Shai Hulud who included a cover of the standard on their album ‘Hearts Once Nourished with Hope and Compassion’, released in 1997. The song was a secret track on the album showing the enduring popularity of the composition. The album includes samples from Bill Murray in ‘Groundhog Day’ and Sigourney Weaver in ‘Alien’ (a movie described famously as ‘JAWS in space’) so its entirely possible that the band knew ‘Show me the Way to Go Home’ best from JAWS, sadly but no evidence of this has been recorded. Still, great band though.

Stadium Mega band, U2 got in on the act during their live shows when Bono sang the song several times during on the Zoo TV Tour in 1992/93. Dressed as the character Macphisto, the lead singer would end the show with a speech, telling the various regions of the world what he’d done for them. He’d also call a famous personality as a stunt from the stage - President Bill Clinton being one of the most famous recipients. On the Australian leg of the tour in Sydney, Mr Macphisto changed things up a bit, calling a taxi firm to take him home. It was at this point that he began singing the song. It signified that even though the devil character had ‘given the world so much’ he still despaired at our lack of intelligence at sorting out our differences amicably. In the end, he just wanted to leave us all behind.

Even the superb 2007 documentary, ‘The Shark is Still Working’, got in on the act - not surprising really. A version was recorded in direct tribute to its appearance in JAWS and included in the end credits.

Nashville based composer Michael McCormack and guitarist Greg Parker performed the song.

The sludge/doom/post-metal/punk band Squalus (see what they did there?) released an album in 2017 entitled ‘The Great Fish’. Every song on the record directly refers to JAWS with songs like ‘Swim, Charlie Swim’, ‘Eating Machine in the Pond’, and ‘He Ate the Light’ being a small selection.

Their cover of the famous drinking song is a near direct cover of Quint, Hooper and Brody slurring and droning their way through the words on The Orca. It’s a great album for all aficionados of this gloomy sub genre of rock and the swirling, dark feel to it does evoke a certain amount of dread and fear.

‘Show Me the Way to Go Home’ has also appeared in quite a selection of other movies prior to and post to the release of JAWS.

As far back as 1928, the silent movie ‘The Crowd’ displayed the first two lines of the song on screen when the character John decides a night of drinking and dancing is better than heading home to his wife on Christmas Eve (the total opposite of Chief Brody).

It’s also the basis for the 1932 short ‘Screen Songs, it appears in 1933’s ‘Hell Below’ and popped up the same year in a scene of ‘Beauty for Sale’.

Jump forward to 1970 and it’s sung in the movie ‘Husbands’. Three men (Ben Gazzara, Peter Falk and John Cassavetes) play men going through a midlife crisis following the death of a close friend. This is just 5 years prior to JAWS and we see a trio of men brought together by trauma, getting drunk and singing to blot out what’s really happening.

And now…It’s 1975.

JAWS was really the moment the song entered modern consciousness. It perfectly sums up the emotions of the men onboard the Orca - even Quint. They’ve spent the day battling the monster, heard the tale of the USS Indianapolis from their captain, compared scars, drunk to their legs and now, quite reasonably it’s time for a good old sing-song. These men know that they’re quite literally caught between the Devil and the deep blue sea and the song is the ultimate act of defiance, telling the shark to just hang on, we’re having a nice time here… But Bruce waits for no man, he eats the light.

Once JAWS had moved on from the box office, the next film to feature the song was

‘Eat My Dust’, a 1976 movie starring Ron Howard. It’s a knockabout car chase film by B-Movie King, Roger Corman. A precursor to ‘Smokey & the Bandit’, ‘The Dukes of Hazzard and even in some way (if you squint hard enough) ‘Badlands’, it stars Howard as the son of a local sheriff who steals a cool car and heads off with a beautiful girl at his side - with the cops in hot (and ineffective) pursuit. This time, the car in question’s a tangerine orange ‘68 Chevy Camaro, instead of the ‘58 Ivory White Chevy Impala he piloted as Steve Bolander in ‘American Graffiti’ three years earlier. ‘Eat My Dust’ also shared one other link to the George Lucas teen classic (and JAWS) - they both also starred Richard Dreyfuss.

Our next movie is ‘The Underground Eiger’, a documentary about English cave diving duo, Geoff Yeadon and Oliver Statham. The song turns up when Statham - incidentally, no relation to star of ‘The Meg’ - sings it at one point during the record-breaking 1800 metre descent. He and Yeadon complete the incredible feat and finally emerge after many a tense moment underground. An estimated 20 million viewers watched real life drama unfold in 1979.

Fast Forward to 1992 and ‘A River Runs Through It’, where the song is sung by an old man in a jail cell. Paul, played by Brad Pitt, is picked up by his brother after a night behind bars. The old man can be seen as a warning to Paul’s character - a rebellious young man who refuses to be tamed by his religious father - and that this could be Paul’s future if he doesn’t mend his ways. Paul needs to ‘find his way home’ instead of pushing against his upbringing and be more like his attentive brother Norman. But Paul seems unable to change.

In ‘Cassandra’s Dream’ - a Woody Allen feature from 2007 - the song crops up as brothers, Colin Farrell and Ewan McGregor, take their boat out on its maiden voyage. Whether or not this is a direct nod to JAWS is unclear but the entire plot of the movie seems linked to the boat - Cassandra’s Dream. In Greek mythology, Cassandra prophesied doom but was ignored by those around her. When you know this, its very difficult to think of anyone but Chief Brody. A man who told everyone that they really needed to watch out for the killer shark but was dismissed for overreacting and not understanding how the economy worked. Alongside this in ‘Cassandra’s Dream’ we have a boat playing a major role in both films and there’s an extremely strong correlation between the two movies.

2010 saw the arrival of ‘Piranha 3D’ with a character going by the name of Matt Hooper sitting in a boat, singing the song as it plays on his radio. No, it’s not subtle but who wants subtle in a movie about piranhas?

As I really hope we’re all aware, it’s Richard Dreyfuss again, spoofing his role from JAWS. Watching it though, it’s not a nice thing to see. This is Matt Hooper! He’s I n his hat, wire rim glasses and double denim and you just know he’s going to die. It’s not fair, the man gets to drink a beer this time (doesn’t look like Narragansett though) instead of a coffee in a plastic cup and he even quotes the line “fast fish” when he hauls his catch from the water. But then there’s some kind of earthquake and he gets ripped apart by a school of CGI piranha.

But that’s Showbiz folks - cruel.

2012 brought us ‘The Battery’ where two men, Ben and Mickey, sing the song as they become trapped in their car. But what are they trapped? What lurks in the shadows? Once again, the song accompanies drinking and being drunk and once again, there’s a monster on the loose.

This time though, it’s zombies instead of a shark.

Even though I’m not the sort to accept JAWS as either a simple ‘shark movie’ or indeed an out- and-out horror, there are certainly similarities. The desperation of the situation, the desire to blot out reality with booze and the antagonistic relationship between the characters.

The title refers to batteries being drained continuously throughout the film as Mickey listens to his CD player in an attempt to get back to ‘normal life’ but also the finale as the zombies attack the car - their ‘battery’ is as unrelenting and merciless as Bruce attacking the Orca.

‘The Beautiful Fantastic’, a story about a woman with obsessive compulsive disorder has a scene where the lead character sings some lines from the song as she walks with a friend. The film tells the story of Milly who works in a local library and is trying to write a children’s book. She has a fear of plants but lives in a rented house surrounded by gardens and is given a month to improve the outdoor space or face eviction. It’s possible to draw comparisons with Brody and his pathological fear of the water (or ‘drowning’ as he puts it) and Milly’s distrust of plants, but it’s quite a tenuous link. The use of the song is really as a simple signifier that Milly wants to find her way to a more manageable life and hopefully by facing her fears and getting to know her neighbours she can at least start to do this.

There have been just as many - if not more - television instances of the song being used. Notably (in terms of its links to JAWS) we see in ‘Babylon 5’, the episode ‘Meditations on the Abyss’ as our first contender. Once more, the song is sung by a character while they’re drunk - so far, so JAWS. As to the ‘abyss’ of the title and meditating on it, isn’t this exactly what our three characters do in JAWS? They are staring into the abyss - the mouth of the shark - and drunkenly laughing at it. But what else is there to do? In Jewish literature, the abyss is the underworld. A place where the dead live. In the New Testament, Jesus sent the Gaderene swine into the abyss and the beasts of the sea. It’s deals with exorcising demons and saving our soul.

In Season 3 of ‘Lost’, Sawyer sings the song while paddling a boat and taking his wife back to the main island. It’s another pretty obvious tip of the sou’wester to JAWS, and when you know that the concept what created in part by JJ Abrams - a devotee of all things Spielbergian - the links are even stronger.

‘Red Dwarf’ - an entire series centered around characters marooned on a craft - has the episode ‘Thanks for the Memory’ where Lister, Rimmer, Kryton and company sing the song after finally locating a planet with a breathable atmosphere. Once again, the song signifies some kind of supposed salvation or refusal to just lay down and die.

The Season 2 episode of ‘The Wilds’ has a character singing the song onboard yet another boat. There’s also been a shark attack and hope seems in pretty short supply. In an attempt to raise their spirits, the characters start the now very familiar tune. It’s not so much a subtle homage to JAWS, more a flashing neon sign as the question arises as to whether anyone knows what movie the song is most heavily associated with.

So there we have it.

From its origins on a long train journey, all the way to the wheelhouse of a down-at-heel fishing boat and beyond, this song has certainly earned its money over the years. Probably the most quoted line from JAWS is “You’re gonna need a bigger boat” but when you look at the amount of times ‘Show Me the Way to Go Home’ has been used in films and television is almost exactly the same way as it was onboard the Orca, you could argue that popular culture has accepted the song as a way to signify defiance and resolve by characters. It’s become a kind of drunken battle cry, that proclaims no matter what devils are lurking in the dark (or buried deep in our memories) we’ll sing it loud to drown out the fear.

And just maybe we’ll find our way home again.

Words by Tim Armitage

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