The Girl I Left Behind Me

England and Ireland both claim it, and the arguments go back more than a century. In Dublin it was printed in 1791 as the song "An Spailpín Fánach" (The Rambling Laborer), and Edward Bunting noted it from the old harper Arthur O'Neill in 1800. In England it was the march "Brighton Camp," which William Chappell tied to the army camps on the south coast in 1758 and 1759, though that date has never been proven.

The story that regiments and warships played it whenever they left town is repeated often, but there is little evidence for it before the American Civil War. Thomas Moore set his song "As Slow Our Ship" to the melody in 1818, and in America it became a fiddle tune and a dance tune for quadrilles, two steps and square dances.