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The Girl I Left Behind Me

[ Roud 23929 ; Ballad Index R546 ; Bodleian Roud 23929 ; DT GIRLLFT1 , GRLBHND9 ; Mudcat 8328 ; trad.]

Lincolnshire band The Galley sang The Girl I Left Behind Me on their 1975 album Hail Smiling Morn / Joke and Push About the Pitcher. They noted:

This march, often entitled Brighton Camp, is far better known in parody than in the original: most people know some scurrilous rhyme set to it. For many years it was always played whenever a regiment left a town where it had been garrisoned, and to omit this custom, says Chappell, would have been regarded “as a slight on the ladies of the place”. See Chappell for copious notes on the origin of the song, and further, though equally florid verses to those we use here.

Lyrics

The Galley sing The Girl I Left Behind Me

I‘m lonesome since I crossed the hill and o’er the moor and valley
Such heavy thoughts my heart do fill since parting with my Sally.
I seek no more the fine or gay, for each does but remind me
How swift the hours did pass away with the girl I left behind me.

O ne’er shall I forget the night the stars were bright above me
And gently lent their silvery light when first she vowed to love me.
But now I’m bound to Brighton Camp, kind Heaven then pray guide me
And send me safely back again to the girl I left behind me.

Her golden hair to in ringlets fair, her eyes like diamonds shining,
Her slender waist with carriage chaste may leave the swan repining.
Ye gods above O hear my prayer, to my beauty fair to bind me
And send me safely back again to the girl I left behind me.