“(Back Home Again in) Indiana” is a 1917 Tin Pan Alley song with music by James F. Hanley and lyrics by Ballard MacDonald, published by Shapiro, Bernstein & Co. in New York in January 1917. Its words and phrases reuse those of the earlier song “On the Banks of the Wabash, Far Away”. In 1917 the Original Dixieland Jass Band recorded it as an instrumental, coupled with “Darktown Strutters' Ball”. The record is one of the earliest jazz recordings, and the tune became a jazz standard. Louis Armstrong and his All Stars opened every public performance with it for years. Its chord changes underpin Charlie Parker and Miles Davis's “Donna Lee” and lesser contrafacts such as Fats Navarro's “Ice Freezes Red”, while Joe Young, Jean Schwartz and Joe Ager's “In a Little Red Barn” (1934) reuses its key words and chorus harmony. Covers include those by Eddie Condon (1928), Red Nichols (1929) and Lester Young with Count Basie (1944). Since 1946 the chorus has been sung before the Indianapolis 500 pre-race ceremonies, and from 1972 to 2014 Jim Nabors sang it most often. A 1988 parody, “I Spent the War in Indiana”, mocked Dan Quayle's National Guard service.
