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FAMOUS SONGS
the troops were leaving the place where he had a sweetheart, he ordered the band to play u The Girl I left behind Me," which, even then, was an old Irish melody. The story of his accommo-dating heart soon spread through the army, and other bandmasters, at the request of officers and soldiers, began to use the melody as a parting tune, and by the end of the century it was ac-counted disrespectful to the ladies for a regiment to march away without playing " The Girl I left behind Me."
Manuscript copies of the song have been found dated 1770, but it was well known among the Irish minstrels long before that, and was popular even as a street song in the Irish capital in the early part of the eighteenth century. But who really wrote either words or music will per-haps never be known. Moore wrote his pretty ballad, " As Slow our Ships/' to this melody. The Scottish don't claim it.
" Ta me mo chodladh"—" I am asleep, and don't waken me"—"an ancient and beauti-ful air," says Bunting, "unwarrantably appro-priated by the Scotch, among whom Hector MacNeil has written words to it ("Jeanie's Black E'e"). The Irish words that remain are evidently very old, and consist only of six lines:
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