> A.L. Lloyd > Songs > St. James's Hospital
> Martin Carthy > Songs > Young Sailor Cut Down in His Prime

St. James's Hospital

[Trad.]

This was sung unaccompanied by A.L. Lloyd on his albums English Street Songs and First Person. The latter track was reissued in 1994 on the CD Classic A.L. Lloyd. A.L. Lloyd wrote in the album's sleeve notes:

It's often said that a folk song has no fixed form: passing from mouth to mouth it's likely to take on various shapes adapted to sundry circumstances. Few songs illustrate this better than Saint James's Hospital, sometimes called The Unfortunate Rake. It began life as the lament of a soldier “disordered” by a woman; he seems to feel that the wounds of Venus, no less than those on the battlefields, entitle him to a funeral with full military honours. In the sea-ports the song was altered to concern a sailor, and it spread widely under the title of The Whores of the City. Later, the sexes got reversed, and a new version arose as The Young Girl Cut Down in Her Prime. In the U.S.A. a cowboy adaption, The Streets of Laredo, became one of the best known American folk songs. Incongruously, both the young girl and the cowboy ask for a military funeral. A late avatar of this persistent song is the jazz epic, Saint James' Infirmary, sometimes called a blues though it's more like a ballad. A memory of the original scene lingers in the title of Infirmary, and the ceremonial funeral remains, but in underworld rather than military splendour. In World War II, a version called The Dying Marine became the unofficial anthem of the Royal Marine Commandoes. The tune we use here is the earliest reported, “sung in Cork about 1790”.

Martin Carthy sang a much shorter verson with quite different verses as Young Sailor Cut Down in His Prime on the LP Songs from ABC Television's “Hallelujah”.

Compare this to Steeleye Span singing When I Was on Horseback on their third album Ten Man Mop, to Norma Waterson singing The Unfortunate Lass on her and her sister Lal's album A True Hearted Girl, and Norma singing Bright Shiny Morning as title track of her third solo album Bright Shiny Morning. All of these songs share the funeral verses.

Lyrics

A.L. Lloyd's St. James's Hospital

As I was a-walking down by St. James's hospital,
I was a-walking down by there one day.
What should I spy but one of me comrades,
All wrapped up in flannel, though warm was the day.

I asked him what ailed him, I asked him what failed him,
I asked him the cause of all his complaint.
“Well, it's all on account of some handsome young woman
'Tis she that has caused me to weep and lament.”

“And had she but told me before she disordered me,
Had she but told me of it in time,
I might have got pills or salts of white mercury
But now I'm cut down in the height of me prime.”

“Get six young soldiers to carry me coffin,
Six young girls to sing me a song,
And each of them carry a bunch of green laurel
So they don't smell me as they bear me along.”

“And don't muffle your drums, me jewel, me joy,
Play your fife merry as you bear me along.
And fire your bright muskets all over me coffin,
Sayin', “There goes an unfortunate lad to his home.”

Martin Carthy's Young Sailor Cut Down in His Prime

So beat the drum o'er him and play the fife merrily,
Sound the dead march as you carry him along.
Take him to the graveyard, fire five volleys o'er him,
For he was a young sailor cut down in his prime.

At the top of yon street you can see two girls standing
One to the other did whisper and say,
“There goes the young sailor whose money we squandered,
Whose like we have tasted and wasted away.”