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English folk song

"The Girl I Left Behind", also known as "The Girl I Left Behind Me", is an English folk song dating back to the Elizabethan era. It is said to have been played when soldiers left for war or a naval vessel set sail. According to other sources the song originated in 1758 when English Admirals Hawke and Rodney were observing the French fleet. of which a copy dating from around 1796 resides in the Bodleian Library, Oxford.

The melody is derived from a traditional Irish melody known as An Spailpín Fánach, meaning "The Wandering Labourer", which was collected by Edward Bunting in The Ancient Music of Ireland (1840). An Spailpín Fánach continues to exist as a popular sean nós song in traditional Irish speaking communities, although it is unknown whether its lyrics predate "The Girl I Left Behind Me" or if the lyrics were a later addition to the An Spailpín Fánach melody.

The song was recorded from the mouths of traditional singers in the twentieth century, particularly in the Ozarks. Hallie Griffin of Conway, Arkansas sang an old version beginning "The maids of France are fond and true" in 1958 to Mary Celestia Parler, which can be heard online via the University of Arkansas digital library. Bertha Lauderdale of Fayetteville, Arkansas sang a version to Parler beginning "Oh they dressed me up in scarlet red", which she learnt from her Irish grandfather who said it had been sung that way during the American Revolutionary War. This recording can also be heard online courtesy of the University of Arkansas. A third version collected by Parler, which can also be heard online, appears to have been turned into a dance song.

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 title of Chapter 30 of William Thackeray's Vanity Fair (published in serial form in 1847–1848) is “‘The Girl I Left Behind Me’”. Within the chapter is a further reference to the song: “Jack or Donald marches away to glory with his knapsack on his shoulder, stepping out briskly to the tune of ‘The Girl I left behind me’." The title of Eastman Johnson's painting, made shortly after the American Civil War, was drawn from this ballad. In the 1980 movie The Long Riders, set several years after the American Civil War, Keith Carradine sings a variant of the song which Oscar Brand has recorded under the title "The Wayward Boy", beginning: "I walk the street with a tap to my feet. I heard a voice above me." 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. 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. An uptempo version of the tune recorded by Pete Rugolo and His Orchestra served as the opening and closing theme of the 1961–1962 CBS situation comedy Ichabod and Me. "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". Chapter 3 of Hornblower in the West Indies opens with the first few lines of the lyrics. The song appears several times in the TV movie Sharpe's Company. Emphasizing 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; a fife and drum corps plays the song while leading a regiment marching through London in the 1939 film "The Four Feathers". 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".

"The Girl I Left Behind" has been recorded many times, by The Skillet Lickers, Jay Ungar, The Avett Brothers, The Albion Band, Jules Allen and Molly Mason among others. Bing Crosby included the song in a medley on his album 101 Gang Songs (1961). It appeared with the title "Ichabod and Me Theme" as a track on the Pete Rugolo and His Orchestra album TV's Top Themes (1962).