Views differ on whether “SJI” ought properly be traced quite so far back as “The Unfortunate Rake.” My take remains that there’s somewhat of a connection there, so I read with interest today this entry on NineBullets.net. It’s about “The Cowboy’s Lament”/”Streets of Laredo” a song cycle with a connection to “The Unfortunate Rake” that seems more obvious. But:
While it appears to have descended from “The Unfortunate Rake,” the origins go a little deeper all the way back to an Irish ballad “Bard of Armaugh” which later mutated into “A Handful of Laurel” which is the work “The Unfortunate Rake” was based on.
Read (and listen to) more on this subject, here.
“Bard of Armaugh”? I admit, that’s a new one on me. I’ll investigate as time allows, though comments and tips in the meantime are obviously welcome.
The position of “The Bard of Armagh” is debatable – I don’t think one can assume with authority when it was written, or if it predated or postdated “The Unfortunate Rake.” Lyrically, of course, it is a much different song, so if it was in any position to offer something to the Rake cycle of songs, it was melody, not theme or lyric.
“A Handful of Laurel” strikes me as a bit of a mystery – I’d be interested in finding someone who has heard this song in its entirety. I may live to eat my words, but it might be little more than a few remembered words from an old song, otherwise forgotten.
Bob
Interesting, thanks Bob!
Hi,
There are a few little bits of interesting information on the whole saga. First up there is some connection between the USA blues music and the much older Scottish, “Pibroch”, (bagpipe), laments. This especially with the laments played by a lone piper at, (particularly), military funerals. Then there is an old Scottish traditional song, “The road and the miles to Dundee”, with the identical tune to, “The Cowboy’s Lament”. There is also the fact that the original St James Infirmary was a London hospital for Leper woman but also for female venerial disease sufferers. The site of this infirmary was take over by King Henry VIII who built the St James’ Palace on the site. This Royal Palace is the official royal residence although Her Majesty actually lives at Buckingham Palace. HRH the Prince of Wales lists it as his official residence. Then we have the line of, “St James Infirmary Blues”, that goes, “please bury me in my high Stetson hat”. Probably harks back to the Top Hat that is worn to this day by fureral directors and undertakers. Incidentally one of the World’s best known hat makers is Lock & co., who have traded from an address in St James’ Street, London since 1676 and long before, “John Hetherington”, was arrested for wearing the very first Top Hat, (as reported in, “The St James’s Gazette”, in January 1797.
Really, then, all clues point to the origins of the Unfortunate Rake, Cowboys Lament and St James Infirmay Blues being in the UK and probably to either Scottish or Irish traditional folk music. Remember that around the time of emergence of the songs in the USA the several places laying claim to the work were all important sea ports where sailors would sing them in the many inns, hostelries and illegal drinking dens of the day.
Aefauldlie, (Lowland Scots word for, “Honestly”),
Robert (Auld Bob), Peffers.
do you have the notated music for ‘The unfortunate Rake?’
I do not have notated music for that, no. Sorry.
In diplomatic circles, a London posting is known as “the Court of St. James’s” to this day.
Hello
I have been trying to research this, and I cannot find evidence of an old song called The Unfortunate Rake. All roads appear to lead back to A L Lloyd. He is known to modify ‘traditional’ songs without being fully open about just how much he has altered them. You can more or less work out where he took the various bits of the version he sings. The bit about laurel comes from My jewel my joy and is in a couple of early 20th century versions collected in the field in England, but it is not in any 19th century broadsheet I have seen. The bit about bright muskets I believe he made up: muskets were outdated in the 19th century.
On the tune, the old ballads were 16 bars: St James Infirmary is 8. Lloyd more or less ignores such important details!
I am aware that many people cite the liner notes to Goldstein’s Folkways LP, but I don’t think these are reliable. I have chased back the references he gives to their sources, and then the references in these sources, including ballad broadsheets available online and old English Folk Song Society journals, and I can find no use of either The Unfortunate Rake OR St James anything.
The first time the words St James appear in Uk literature as far as I can ascertain is after Cecil Sharp collected an Unfortunate Lad variant in Dewey Virginia.
This was published after Sharp’s death, and after the big jazz hit had come out, but his field notes were photocopied and a copy left in the library at Harvard.
I’m guessing this is where a Canadian called Mackenzie may have encountered them as this is the other reference everybody cites on the topic.
The song A L Lloyd sings on that LP is to the tune My Jewel My Joy and I agree that the link is tenuous. Lloyd’s rationale for the choice of that song is thin to put it mildly. I think he just liked it.
As the articles I read show, there was a tendency to group any song with a death at the end with this song, whereas some of them clearly have different themes, and even have different folk-song list numbers. But on the basis that there is no evidence that the words St James were used in Britain it seems a waste of energy to go looking for the original. Most old ballad broadsheet versions say ‘Lock’ hospital, and you can discover using a decent Oxford Dictionary that the earliest known use of this refers to a hospital for venereal disease, which kicks the theories about it being a leprosy hospital into touch and also puts an earliest date on songs about Lock hospitals.
Other hospitals mentioned in British balladsheets/collectors journal articles include Riplington Hospital and Bath hospital, and one old sheet even leaves a gap for the singer to insert whichever hospital they like. Lock hospitals lived on charity: most hospitals at that time would not let you in if you had a nasty infectious disease including venereal disease. There were laws allowing prostitutes to be compulsorily detained and treated, which caused outrage as you can imagine due to the nature of the treatment inflicted. No such laws for the military personal whose poor health was the main cause of the public concern. Interested to know if anybody turns up an early version actually called The Unfortunate Rake or evidence from Britain that anybody there actually sang St James anything prior to the jazz hit.
Thank you for reading.
Hi Karen: Some of this I think I cover or address in my original essay and/or elsewhere on this site, but to be honest it has been a few years since I’ve spent time on this subject and my memory is a bit rusty. I do recommend this site, and the author’s book (you’ll see it there), which I now believe is the definitive work on this subject! http://iwentdowntostjamesinfirmary.blogspot.com/