> A.L. Lloyd > Songs > The Unfortunate Rake / St. James's Hospital
> Martin Carthy > Songs > Young Sailor Cut Down in His Prime
> Louis Killen > Songs > The Sailor Cut Down in His Prime

The Unfortunate Rake / St. James's Hospital

[ Roud 2 ; Laws Q26/B1 ; Ballad Index LQ26 ; trad.]

This song is one in a family of many related songs. In 1960, Kenneth S. Goldstein published an LP on the prestigious Folkways label with 20 variants, The Unfortunate Rake: A Study in the Evolution of a Ballad. His liner notes, available as a PDF scan at Smithsonian Global Sound, are an essential reading.

A.L. Lloyd sang the Unfortunate Rake accompanied by Alf Edwards on concertina on his 1956 album English Street Songs; this is presumably the version included on Goldstein's compilation above. He re-recorded it unaccompanied in 1966 for his album First Person; this track was later included on the CD Classic A.L. Lloyd. A.L. Lloyd commented 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 Commandos. The tune we use here is the earliest reported, “sung in Cork about 1790”.

Martin Carthy sang a much shorter version with quite different verses as Young Sailor Cut Down in His Prime on the 1966 LP Songs from ABC Television's “Hallelujah”.

Louis Killen sang The Sailor Cut Down in His Prime on his 1997 CD A Seaman's Garland (Sailors, Ships & Chanteys Vol. 2).

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 sings The Unfortunate Rake

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 my 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.
“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 and salts of white mercury*
But now I'm cut down in the height of my prime.”

“Get six young soldiers to carry my 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.”

“Don't muffle your drums and play your fifes merrily,
Play a quick march as you carry me along.
And fire your bright muskets all over my coffin,
Saying, “There goes an unfortunate lad to his home.”

[*Salts of mercury were used to treat syphilis]

A.L. Lloyd sings 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 my 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 my 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 my coffin,
Sayin', “There goes an unfortunate lad to his home.”

Martin Carthy sings 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.”