Hello Jim

Still hoping your surgery went well! Thank you for this helpful response. I like Lenihen's version: to be honest I don't much like Lloyd's version. I came into this via St James Infirmary Blues. Somebody told me it was originally Irish, but I cannot find any firm evidence of this. It might have been, but maybe not.

I expected the 'academic' jibe! I'm not an academic, just occasionally I get my teeth into a topic and won't let go. Sorry if I what I wrote came across as harsh: but so much that has been written on this song seems muddled when you dig into the background.

Thanks for your help on the Unfortunate Rake title question, which is what I have spent some time puzzling over.

Just to back up my view that those liner notes have a lot to answer for in terms of spreading incorrect ideas about old broadsheet versions, they are quoted word for word with no full attribution on a mudcat page here

https://mudcat.org/@displaysong.cfm?SongID=7101

This sort of this seems to me to explain why so many people believe that there was a 19th century broadsheet called 'The Unfortunate Rake'.

I was grateful for the discussion on the St James thread as it made me think carefully about my ideas. The big question was whether the finding of the words 'St James' in Nova Scotia in the early 20s and in Dewey in 1918 demonstrated a European origin as the simplest explanation, or whether these words could have originated in the US and been spread there. I recently read something about the old entertainment 'booking circuits' that told me that these crossed the US/Canada border, so clearly the musicians did cross borders in the ealy 20th century, just as much as they crossed the oceans.


Bishop and Roud (I know there has been some heated discussion on Roud's book about folk song) say that the earliest version of the Unfortunate Lad is one set in Covent Garden called the Buck's Lament, 18/19 century and nothing about hospitals in it. For me this further undermines the idea athat the song was originally about St James in London. It's a nice idea, but it doesn't seem to fit really!

Have a nice day.