By British comedy, music and poetry group, The Scaffold has gained popularity for three months straight and then again on 8th February 1969 for another week. An entertaining variation of the traditional folk song, The Ballad ofydia Pinkham, this colourful version boasts of drunken, foot stomping, singalong choruses. It also has the group’s trademark of a chorus that repeats itself too many times. The first time I heard this song was at a friend’s party who’d just listened to the album of The Beatles.
Another version of Lily the Pink is Bovy the Bold, from the album Rocky Roads. This time the title is Bovy the Brave, and it is about the bandit, Bovy. To protect his turf, he hides in the bushes along the footpath and uses a potion to turn other people away, which is supposedly a cure for fear. In Pink Floyd’s album, Wish You Were Here, Wish You Were Me, Bovy is sitting under a tree drinking a potion and looking at a lion through a fence.
In Pink Floyd’s album, Dark Sky, there is a song called Peace, Love and War, which describes the war that resulted in the death of thousands of Chinese soldiers at the hands of U.S. forces in Vietnam. At the time, I had never heard of this number one song. Lily the Pinkham tells us that Bovy the Brave is indeed looking at war, but not like the soldiers. He is looking at peace, love and a better world for all. A more optimistic vision than those depicted by the iconic Vietnam War poster, The Starry Night. Peace, Love and War became a number one hit in the UK and around the world.
In the chorus of the aforementioned Pink Floyd song, the lyrics refer to a medicinal compound called “Boldy.” It is uncertain if the referenced medicine is for a wound or some other condition. However, many believed that it was meant to evoke comparisons between the war and the effects of the anti-inflammatory pain reliever, morphine, in relation to how the former caused the destruction of internal organs, while the latter only caused temporary discomforts, such as coughing.
Lily the Pinkham herself never explained the medicinal compound, but according to various accounts in Pink Floyd’s circle of friends, it was an important medication to a famous singer who used to go to war with an ugly temper and lived with an unstable emotional state. The singer would bring her pinkham stick with her to war and whenever she got injured or ill, her mother would rush to the hospital in time to save her life. Bovy was taken to the United States under the provisions of a deferred action program, which allowed mothers to petition for their children to be immediately taken away from their abusive fathers. Her story has been told numerous times ever since. She survived the war, and she loved her baby Bovy very much.
Lily Pinkham is not the only bad ass in a long line of terribly shy and unfortunate characters in English literature. The ballad singer, James Blunt, ended up in rehab after being diagnosed with an incurable disease. As well, another great ballad singer performer, James Morrison, ended up dead after being caught drunk driving. Author John Keats once wrote a very sad song about a girl who shied away from the army because she was afraid of dying while fighting for her country. And don’t forget the most famous ballad singer of all time Ella Fitzgerald, who hid her identity at every turn for the duration of her singing career.
So where do these stories leave us in terms of identifying the “weirdo” in our everyday lives? In every case, the answer is we don’t. In each case, we know the person; we recognize them by their weirdoes (or whatever you prefer to call them). But in each case, in addition to knowing the person, we also know the condition that renders that person to be so weirdo (or whatever you prefer to call them). It’s weirdness for good or ill, and in each case, in the end we all know someone who is a little off from the crowd, but at least we have some trust in them.
That’s the real beauty of this little story. A fairy tale told thousands of years ago that has been told and retold again. In every generation, we invent new medications, new ways to help people recover, new ways to help heal the sick and the diseased. A little narrative, a little fairy tale, and a bunch of compound elements: Let us sing about them, for they are as sweet as honey.
