"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").

[1] The song was published first as "'Till the Boys Come Home" on 8 October 1914 by Ascherberg, Hopwood and Crew Ltd. in London.

[3] The lyricist Lena Ford was killed in March 1918 during a German air raid on her home in Warrington Crescent in Maida Vale.

[4] 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.

[citation needed] The opening of the melody bears a resemblance to Gustav Holst's setting of the Christmas carol "In the Bleak Midwinter".