The Girl I Left Behind Me

[Ranald]

Here's a cheerful mandolin rendition of "The Girl I Left Behind" which I know as "The Girl I Left Behind Me." The band is "Mighty Maples." I know nothing about them other than that their album "Canada Fiddle Favourites" is available online. The album provides a good sampling of tunes from the Canadian old-time fiddle repertoire, including a few borrowed from south of the border, and others, such as "The Girl I Left Behind" that have entered tradition from across the sea. (Still, I'm not sure that "Have I Told You Lately That I Love You" has entered our old-time repertoire.) A quick sampling of this album indicates that mandolin and sometimes piano are the main melody instruments. In listening to five or six tunes, I didn't hear any fiddle. The music is lively and dancey (if unsubtle).

For those interested the song/tune has an interesting history:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Girl_I_Left_Behind


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbkH...tyMaples-Topic

[Simon DS]

Love it!

[Chris Fannin]

Great tune, I’ve been playing David Benedict’s version. There’s quite a bit of melody in that song that makes me think of the Pogues Waxie’s Dargle.

Postscript: I see on the Wikipedia page it mentions Waxie’s Dargle. So cool to find out the history of songs. I never put the two together until hearing this version.

[HonketyHank]

This thread - https://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/g...977&do=discuss - has a bit of history for the tune including "waxies dargle"; see the first few posts.

[Anglocelt]

Great old tune probably originating in England as a military band marching tune, with the words redolent of soldiers longing. As a band tune it is widely known as Brighton Camp. Many songs have been written to this tune, including the Waxie's Dargle in Ireland and it makes appearances in cavalry scenes in John Ford movies.

[Russ Jordan]

Nice!

And I love this version:

[Gary Leonard]