Vic

The Mainly Norfolk website was one of the first places I looked for info on 'The Unfortunate Rake'. It quotes Lloyd as saying on another LP that the the tune was collected in Cork. The tune was collected in Cork, and so was a fragment which was interpreted as being a version of the ending of the song. Where Goldstein went wrong was in asserting in the liner notes 'Dublin' instead of Cork. The date 1790 is right. I went right back to the original publication of the fragment by PW Joyce to check this.

The mainly Nrfolk web site also points up mistakes in what Goldstein says about the version sung by MacColl.

Happy to learn where you think I differ from that web site. As it stands I cannot look at this because I don't know where you mean. ANd I honesty would want to change my ideas if they were shown to be wrong. I am not denying that this song was taken up and transformed, becoming something of a favourite with revivalists, perhaps because its taboo content appealed to their sense of how 'repressed' society was over some subjects.

The Mainly Norfolk web site gives two Lloyd versions, one called 'St James Hospital'. Both in my view are Lloyd tinkerings. It was originally a 'homiletic' ballad with a sad ending: Lloyd makes the character more unrepentant, wanting to go out with a bang. He misses out a self-critical repentant verse in all of the 19th century broadsides.

The earliest known version was set in Covent Garden. It is a broadside. I learned this from Bishop and Roud's book of English Folk Songs. Nobody up to and including Lloyd seems to have known this. There were several more or less identical 19th century broadsides, all called The Unfortunate Lad, none set in St James, and one having a blank instead of a place name.

Do let me know where you think I contradict Mainly Norfolk.

I have read what you say about Goldstein above: I am sure he made a positive contribution to a revival of interest, just that on this one piece he seems not to have been quite thorough enough in terms of historical accuracy and in terms of the authenticity of what he plainly presents as a genuine 19th century broadside version. None of the sources cited by Goldstein claims to have seen a 19th century version featuring the words 'St James' anything. I think Lloyd realised this himself, so he came up with one.

Karen