The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #46310   Message #3322236
Posted By: GUEST,curious
13-Mar-12 - 10:03 AM
Thread Name: Origin: Saint James Infirmary Blues
Subject: RE: Origin: Saint James Infirmary Blues
I first came across the song SJI in Germany - a German beardy jazz/blues band had it on their LP. That was in 1981, and the LP was a few years old at that time. If anyone knows who the band were/what the album was called - let me know: catsanddogsand8@hotmail.com - I'd love to hear it again. (I had recently worked in St James Hospital in Dublin and was broken-hearted at the time, which is why I loved it so much.) The words as I recall them:

I went down to St James Infirmary.
to see my baby there
lying on a cold white table.
So sweet, so cold, so fair.

"hey hey What's my baby's chances?"
I asked old Doctor Sharp.
"Boy, by six o' clock this evenin'
She'll be playin' her golden harp".

Let her go, let her go, God bless her,
Wherever she may be,
She can hunt this wide world over,
But she'll never find a man like me.

I may be drowned in the ocean,
May be killed by the cannonball,
But boy one thing I can tell you,
A woman was the cause of it all.