"Lily the Pink" is a 1968 song released by the UK comedy group The Scaffold, which reached No. 1 in the UK Singles Chart. It is a modernisation of an older folk song titled "The Ballad of Lydia Pinkham". The lyrics celebrate the "medicinal compound" invented by Lily the Pink, and humorously chronicle the "efficacious" cures it has brought about, such as inducing morbid obesity to cure a weak appetite, or bringing about a sex change as a remedy for freckles.
The Scaffold version
The Scaffold's record, released in November 1968, became No. 1 in the UK Singles Chart for the four weeks encompassing the Christmas holidays that year. Backing vocalists on the recording included Graham Nash, Elton John, and Tim Rice; while Jack Bruce played the bass guitar. The lyrics include a number of in-jokes. For example, the line "Mr Frears has sticky out ears" refers to film directorStephen Frears, who had worked with The Scaffold early in their career; while the line "Jennifer Eccles had terrible freckles" refers to the song "Jennifer Eccles" by The Hollies, the band Graham Nash was about to leave.
Charts
Covers, derivative versions, and similar songs
Another version of the song, released a few months after The Scaffold's by The Irish Rovers, became a minor hit with North American audiences in early 1969. At a time when covers were released almost as soon as the originals, the release from the Rovers' Tales to Warm Your MindDecca LP became a second-favourite behind "The Unicorn". The song has since been adopted by the folk community. It has been performed live by the Brobdingnagian Bards and other Celtic-style folk and folk artists. The song was successfully adapted into French by Richard Anthony in 1969. That version described humorously the devastating effects of a so-called panacée. In 1968, an Italian version was made by the band I gufi, describing the effects of drinking alcohol on several humorous, fictional characters. In 1952, Johnny Standley recorded "Grandma's Lye Soap", a song about soap with similarly bizarre ways of curing maladies.
Earlier folk song
The U.S. American folk song on which "Lily the Pink" is based is generally known as "Lydia Pinkham" or "The Ballad of Lydia Pinkham". It has the Roud number 8368. The song was inspired by Lydia E. Pinkham's Vegetable Compound, a well-known herbal-alcoholic patent medicine for women. Supposed to relieve menstrual and menopausal pains, the compound was mass-marketed in the United States from 1876 onwards. The song was certainly in existence by the time of the First World War. F. W. Harvey records it being sung in officers' prisoner-of-war camps in Germany, and ascribes it to Canadian prisoners. According to Harvey, the words of the first verse ran:
Have you heard of Lydia Pinkum, And her love for the human race? How she sells her wonderful compound, And the papers publish her face?
In many versions, the complaints which the compound had cured were highly ribald in nature. During the Prohibition era in the United States, the medicine had a particular appeal as a readily available 40-proof alcoholic drink, and it is likely that this aided the popularity of the song. A version of the song was the unofficial regimental song of the Royal Tank Corps during World War II.
