The Girl I Left Behind

"The Girl I Left Behind" also known as "The Girl I Left Behind Me" is a long-standing popular folk tune and song, dated by most authorities^[1] to the late 18th or early 19th century.^[2]

History

The first known printed text of a song with this name appeared in the serial song collection The Charms of Melody, Dublin, Ireland, issue no. 72, printed in Dublin from 1791^[3] and in Exshaw's Magazine (Dublin, September 1794).^[4] The earliest known version of the melody was printed about 1810 in Hime's Pocket Book for the German Flute or Violin (Dublin), vol. 3, p. 67, under the title "The Girl I left Behind Me" (National Library of Ireland, Dublin).^[5] Theodore Ralph claimed that it was known in America as early as 1650, under the name "Brighton Camp",^[6] but there is no evidence to support this assumption, and the only known tune of "Brighton Camp"^[7] differed from that of the song in question.

It has many variations and verses, for example "Blyth Camps, Or, the Girl I left behind Me" (1812, Newcastle), "Brighton Camp, or the Girl I left behind Me" (1815, Dublin, from which the "Brighton" title probably came), "Nonesuch," and others. Here is one example:

All the dames of France are fond and free

And Flemish lips are really willing

Very soft the maids of Italy

And Spanish eyes are so thrilling

Still, although I bask beneath their smile,

Their charms will fail to bind me

And my heart falls back to Erin's isle

To the girl I left behind me.

A number of Irish-language and English-language songs were set to this tune in Ireland in the 19th century, such as "An Spailpín Fánach" (translated into English as "The Rambling Labourer"), "The Rare Old Mountain Dew" (published New York, 1882) and in the 20th century, such as "Waxie's Dargle".

In England the tune is often known as "Brighton Camp" and is used for Morris dancing.

The hours sad I left a maid

A lingering farewell taking

Whose sighs and tears my steps delayed

I thought her heart was breaking

In hurried words her name I blest

I breathed the vows that bind me

And to my heart in anguish pressed

The girl I left behind me

Then to the east we bore away

To win a name in story

And there where dawns the sun of day

There dawned our sun of glory

The place in my sight

When in the host assigned me

I shared the glory of that fight

Sweet girl I left behind me

Though many a name our banner bore

Of former deeds of daring

But they were of the day of yore

In which we had no sharing

But now our laurels freshly won

With the old one shall entwine me

Singing worthy of our size each son

Sweet girl I left behind me

The hope of final victory

Within my bosom burning

Is mingling with sweet thoughts of thee

And of my fond returning

But should I n'eer return again

Still with thy love i'll bind me

Dishonors breath shall never stain

The name I leave behind me

Civil War use

The song was popular in the US regular army, who adopted it during the War of 1812 after they heard a British prisoner singing it.^[8] The song was used by the Army as a marching tune throughout the 19th century.

These are the lyrics popular by the army in the 19th century:

I'm lonesome since I crossed the hill

And over the moor that's sedgy

Such lonely thoughts my heart do fill

Since parting with my Betsey

I seek for one as fair and gay

But find none to remind me

How sweet the hours I passed away

With the girl I left behind me

During the Civil War the Confederates had their own version:

Old Abe lies sick, Old Abe lies sick

Old Abe lies sick in bed

He's a lying dog, a crying dog

And I wish that he was dead

Jeff Davis is a gentleman

Abe Lincoln is a fool

Jeff Davis rides a big white horse

And Lincoln rides a mule

Abraham Lincoln's assassination inspired another version.^[9]

World War I use

In the early stages of WWI, the British army used an obscene version of this song which ran in part:

"Kaiser Bill is feeling ill,

the Crown Prince has gone barmy,

We don't give a fuck for old von Kluck

And all his bleedin' army".^[10]

Other musical forms

This tune has been quoted in some pieces of classical music, such as:

• Hamilton Harty's An Irish Symphony
• Roy Harris's Symphony No. 4 Folk Song Symphony

Josef Holbrooke wrote a set of orchestral variations on the song.

The theme "The Girl I Left Behind" can be heard as an overlay in Glenn Miller's arrangement of "American Patrol", popularised during World War II.

The song forms a portion of the melody of Guy Mitchell's 1951 hit "Belle, Belle, My Liberty Belle".

Examples of use in media

The song has a march beat and has often been associated with British and American military bands, especially in the context of soldiers heading out to (or returning from) battle. The tune is easy to play on the fife, and is one of two songs often associated with the famous The Spirit of '76 painting, along with "Yankee Doodle". One example in popular culture that illustrates this cliché is at the end of the Bugs Bunny cartoon, A Wild Hare, in which the bunny marches into the sunset playing the tune on a fife (in reality, a carrot) and affecting a stiff leg as with the fifer in the painting. Bugs later plays it at the end of Bunker Hill Bunny, accompanied by Yosemite Sam.

The Girl I Left Behind Me, by Eastman Johnson, early 1870s

The title of Eastman Johnson's painting, made shortly after the American Civil War, was drawn from this ballad.

Ewan MacColl's song "Ivor" uses the tune to wryly mock the supposedly favourable treatment given to Ivor Novello in prison during World War II.^[11] The tune appears in the Popeye cartoon Popeye the Sailor Meets Sindbad the Sailor. Popeye mumbles to it under his breath as he marches toward his final confrontation with Sindbad. "The Frogs and the Lobsters", an episode of the Hornblower television series, features the tune being played by a band of the Royal Marines, along with the first few bars of "Rule Britannia". The song appears several times in the TV movie Sharpe's Company. Emphasising its popularity with British soldiers during the Napoleonic wars it features prominently in the 1970 movie Waterloo. In particular, it is played during the advance of a British division under the command of Sir Thomas Picton and when the Duke of Wellington orders a general advance at the end of the battle. In a 1960s Beverly Hillbillies episode, the melody is used for the commercial jingle "the best durn soap is Foggy Mountain Soap".

The tune has also been used as a theme for Western films about the Indian Wars, such as a 1915 silent film about George Custer titled The Girl I Left Behind Me and a theme in the soundtrack of John Ford's "cavalry trilogy": Fort Apache, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon and Rio Grande. In the 1968 film The Charge of the Light Brigade a detachment of British soldiers whistle the tune just before the Battle of the Alma. In the animated film An American Tail: Fievel Goes West, Fievel's sister Tanya (voice by Cathy Cavadini) performs a song entitled "The Girl You Left Behind".

Recordings

"The Girl I Left Behind" has been recorded many times, by Jay Ungar, The Avett Brothers, The Albion Band, and Molly Mason among others.

References

External video

Podcast: The Civil War and American Art, Episode 7, Smithsonian American Art Museum[12]

External links

• "The Girl I left Behind" Text and MIDI
• free-scores.com