Teaching about St. James Infirmary
Joe: I will start with the traditional song we performed, which is St James Infirmary, which is identified with Louis Armstrong and New Orleans. He made one of the earliest recordings of the song, but it actually traces back earlier than that and is a song that actually crossed the pond a few times and is connected to a family of tunes often called the Unfortunate Drake,
There are many many versions available online including:
- Harry Cox sang The Young Sailor Cut Down in His Prime on 9 October 1953 to Peter Kennedy. This is a BBC recording included on several Folkways anthologies.
- The north-east Scottish farm labourer Willie Mathieson learned Noo I’m a Young Man Cut Down in My Prime in the winter of 1933 from John Innes, farm servant and second horseman at the farm of Boghead, Dunlugas, Banffshire. He sang it in 1952 at the age of 72 to Hamish Henderson.
In 1966 musician A.L. LLoyd commented, “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 honors. …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.L. Lloyd also recorded St James’s Hospital on his 1966 album First Person
Liana, Jed, and Joe agree that when they teach this song they would:
- Listen to the streets of Laredo and “we would listen to the unfortunate Rake.”
- “We would listen to a Louis Armstrong version.”
- We would listen to a couple other versions as well.
- “We would talk with the students about the differences between these versions.”
- “What do you take away from the lyrics?”
- How does the song evolves in American tradition?
This practice teaches not just the history of the song, but also about the nature of creativity, which is a recombining of elements.
Activity
The website SecondHandSongs is a “database of originals, cover songs, sampled songs, and sampling songs.” It is a large repository with recordings of many public performances for different versions of songs including mostly adaptations and covers. In this activity students can reference the Second Hand Songs website and discuss social use, historical meaning, and appropriation of songs.
Estimated Time:
60-120 minutes
Procedure:
Ask the students, and yourself, the following questions:
- How many versions of St. James Infirmary can you find on the site?
- List some of the earliest recorded versions and what are themes the versions deal with?
- Are any of the themes relevant today?
- Think of several hit pop songs from the last 25 years. Are any of these songs covers which you can find on Second Hand Songs?
- What are the top five most covered songs on the website?
