ABSTRACT
“The Girl I Left Behind Me” was a popular song throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The tune may have dated from the Elizabethan era; the first published version with lyrics appeared in Dublin in 1791. By the nineteenth century, there were many different sets of lyrics to the tune. The piece was generally played as a regiment was embarking to go overseas, often as the ships began to leave the harbour. The cheerful, lilting tune must have seemed singularly inappropriate to the wives left behind on the dockside, knowing as they did, that it was very possible they would never see their husbands again, that their children would grow up without a father, and that the family likely faced a life of destitution.
