“The Yellow Handkerchief (Flash Company)”

Description

Singer once loved a young girl who wore a yellow handkerchief. Unfortunately, he kept "flash company", and he is now ruined and destitute; "Like a flower in the garden all my color has gone."

Notes

MacColl and Seeger, for some inexplicable reason, identify their fragement-of-a-fragment with Laws O 37 ("Mary on the Silvery Tide"). Their version is clearly not a unity, but since it has the chorus and form of this song (and the other bits and pieces are too small to identify), here it files.

Including their text "The False-Hearted Lover" is even more of a stretch, but it consists of one verse certainly from this song, one that seems unique, and four floaters; where else do you file it? - RBW

Cross references

• cf. "Oh, No, Not I" (floating lyrics)
• cf. "Green Grows the Laurel (Green Grow the Lilacs)" (floating lyrics)

Broadsides

• Bodleian, Harding B 11(4190), "Flash Company" ("First I loved William, and then I loved John"), Thomas Smith (?), n.d

Recordings

• Phoebe Smith, "Yellow Handkerchief" (on Voice11)

References

1. Kennedy 360, "The Yellow Handkerchief" (1 text, 1 tune)
2. MacSeegTrav 32, "The Yellow Handkerchief" (1 text, 1 tune); also 58, "The False-Hearted Lover" (1 text, 1 tune)
3. DT, FLASHCMP* (FALSHART*)
4. Roud #954
5. BI, K360