Wednesday 2 May 2012

ABC Wednesday: P for Pink

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Pretty pink cherry blossom tree

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Pink butterfly served on a plate!

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Pink Pansies

And while I was putting these pictures together,
an old song started playing in my head…

Scaffold: Lily the Pink

http://youtu.be/u7pHDoJrrz

Did you know (I don’t think I did, or I’d forgotten) that there is an actual story behind these lyrics? Lydia Pinkham (1819 – 1883) was an iconic concocter of a commercially successful herbal-alcoholic "women's tonic" meant to relieve menstrual and menopausal pains. It is reputed to have been her son who came up with the idea, in 1875, of making a family business of the remedy. Lydia initially made the remedy on her stove before its success enabled production to be transferred to a factory. Mass marketed from 1876 on, Lydia E. Pinkham's Vegetable Compound became one of the best known patent medicines of the 19th century.

For ABC Wednesday – P

12 comments:

  1. Haha, I didn't know the story of Lily the Pink and have not heard that song for years.

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    1. I'm sure I haven't heard that song for years or even decades either, but when I'd already decided to do P for Pink, then the line "hm-hm the pink, the pink, the pink" started ringing in my head... I just had to pursue and google, and of course YouTube proved faithful - as nearly always with old hits! ♫

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  2. Both the song and the story are new to me :) Lovely pinkie post.
    P is for...

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  3. i have never heard the song, i do recognize the Lydia Pinkham compound, remember the old advertisements for it. all the pink is beautiful, especially the butterfly plate. a beautiful little rock garden in a dish.so bright and cheerful looking.

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    1. I took that photo and the one below at the florist's/garden centre near where I live, and the cherry blossom tree grows in a garden across the street from there.

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  4. The Lily the Pink story is well known in Liverpool, whence came The Scaffold,

    I love the plate of plants with the pink butterfly - what a clever idea, well esxecuted.

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  5. Your photos are pinkalicious!!!! They are beautiful! I especially like the plateful of pink, and the pink pansy, don't know if I have ever seen one that color. The medicinal compound song has to be the silliest song I have ever heard. But after awhile, it does get unavoidably catchy.

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  6. Very interesting story, Monika! love all the pinks you found!

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  7. What a rhythmical song! Thanks a lot for the interesting story behind the song.
    I love a success story always.
    keiko

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  8. Oh wonderful! Never heard any of this before but it's a hilarious song. So glad you posted this. Needed this pickup - but without this efficacious patent medicinal compound!

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  9. Pink is my favorite spring color. Love your shots of the season, but that's the strangest salad I've ever seen! ;-) Also, thanks for the story behind the song. I'd never heard it before.

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  10. The Scaffold: a super Liverpool comic group one of whose members was Paul McCartney's brother. This song was their only number one chart topper but many of their songs were part of the Liverpool and wider scene in the late '60s. I remember two songs from that era which had asides left in the published versions. One was, I think, in the flipside of Lily the Pink which was Thank You Very Much (for the Aintree Iron) and the other was by The Dubliners (again, I think) where one of the band played a wrong note and another said "You played a bum note there Shaun". I can't imagine such things in the mega-controlled recordings of today.

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