Wiktionary
vb. (context idiomatic colloquial English) To maintain daily routine and provide the necessities of life in a home or community.
Wikipedia
"Keep the Home Fires Burning" is a song by The Bluetones, released as the first single from their third album, Science & Nature. It peaked at number 13 on the UK Singles Chart. Its music video was directed by Edgar Wright.
In 2006, the song was included on the band's two-disc compilation album, A Rough Outline: The Singles & B-Sides 95–03. An acoustic U.S.-released version of the song is featured on the second disc.
Keep the Home-Fires Burning ('Till the Boys Come Home) is a British patriotic First World War song composed in 1914 by Ivor Novello with words by Lena Guilbert Ford (whose middle name was sometimes printed as "Gilbert").
The song was published first as "'Till the Boys Come Home" on 8 October 1914 by Ascherberg, Hopwood and Crew Ltd. in London. A new edition was printed in 1915 with the name Keep the Home-Fires Burning. The song became very popular in the United Kingdom during the war, along with It's a Long Way to Tipperary.
James F. Harrison recorded Keep the Home-Fires Burning in 1915, as did Stanley Kirkby in 1916. Another popular recording was sung by tenor John McCormack in 1917, who was also the first to record It's a Long Way to Tipperary in 1914. (See External links below to hear these recordings of Keep the Home-Fires Burning.) Other versions include one by Frederick J. Wheeler and one by the duet Reed Miller & Frederick Wheeler.
There is a misconception that Ivor Novello's mother wrote the lyrics for the song (propagated—for example—by patter in recorded performances of British musical comedy duo Hinge and Bracket) but Lena Ford (an American) was a friend and collaborator of Novello, not a blood relation.
Keep the Home Fires Burning may refer to:
- "Keep the Home Fires Burning" (1914 song), a British patriotic song by Ivor Novello and Lena Gilbert Ford
- "Keep the Home Fires Burning" (The Bluetones song), 2000
- Keep the Home Fires Burning, a 2004 novel by Anne Baker (author)
- "Keep the Home Fires Burning", an episode of the TV series The Flaxton Boys
Usage examples of "keep the home fires burning".
All I do is look over Marian's plans, keep the home fires burning, and go around shaking people down to pay for it all.
With unflagging grace and good humor, they pitched in wherever they were needed, doing whatever had to be done to keep the home fires burning and the dragons at bay.
Why didn't they keep the home fires burning, turn up the heat a notch, hurry us into making mistakes?
But Li was someone to write home to, someone to keep the home fires burning.