I Want to Go Back to Michigan

[2] The ballad's lyrics employ imagery of an idyllic rural childhood juxtaposed against less appealing city life, which was a theme among some popular songs during this period of rapid urban growth in the United States.

[3] According to Charles Hamm in a biography of Irving Berlin, the songwriter composed "I Want to Go Back to Michigan" at a time when his ambitions were aiming past vaudeville toward musical theater and he was exercising new styles.

The nostalgic reminiscence here, along with "Happy Little Country Girl" composed during the same period, was previously unknown in his work.

[2] The Avalon Boys performed an a cappella version of the song in the 1931 Laurel & Hardy film Pardon Us.

[10] Berlin's deal with MGM for the package of songs that included "I Want to Go Back to Michigan" was $500,000 plus a percentage of box office receipts, which was an unusually advantageous contract for a songwriter and amounted to twenty percent of the film's total budget of $2.5 million.