The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #80151   Message #1458515
Posted By: Q (Frank Staplin)
11-Apr-05 - 08:10 PM
Thread Name: Lyr Req: Cowboy version of 'Girl I left behind me
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Cowboy version of 'Girl I left behind me
The version "The Gal I Left Behind Me" 5, as sung by Jules Verne Allen, is not credited in the DT.
Jules Verne Allen, 1935, "Cowboy Lore," pp. 128-129, with music.

Two more "cowboy" versions are printed, with music, in Austin E. and Alta S. Fife, "Cowboy and Western Songs," No. 62, texts A & B, pp. 170-172. Neither has the first verse mentioning the herd, however. Text A is reproduced from the Oregon Spectator, July 14, 1854.
In a note to the song, the Fifes state that "It was played and sung by 'thousands of men led by the firemen and state militia band at the funeral of Julia Bulette, notorious Virginia City [NV] prostitute.'"