> A.L. Lloyd > Songs > The Unfortunate Rake / St. James’s Hospital
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Young Sailor/Trooper Cut Down in His Prime / The Unfortunate Rake / St. James’s Hospital

[ Roud 2 ; Master title: Young Sailor Cut Down in His Prime ; Laws Q26/B1 ; G/D 7:1404 ; Henry H680 ; Ballad Index LQ26 , LB01 ; The Unfortunate Rake at Fire Draw Near ; VWML FK/2/35 ; Bodleian Roud 2 ; GlosTrad Roud 2 ; trad.]

This song is one in a family of many related songs. In 1960, Kenneth S. Goldstein published an album 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. The first four recordings on this album are British:

  1. A.L. Lloyd sang The Unfortunate Rake, accompanied by Alf Edwards on concertina, on his 1956 album English Street Songs, which was also included here. Goldstein noted:

    This ballad of the ‘disordered’ soldier started its life as a street ballad in the 18th century. It proved to be as tough as its subject and has flourished right into our own time, changing its form hut never its substance. It has formed the base of the ballad of The Young Girl Cut Down in Her Prime, of The Streets of Laredo, and eventually of St. James Infirmary. The scene may change front the hospital to the barroom, the ‘hero’ may be metamorphosed into a girl, a cowboy, a Negro gambler, but the story, and the ceremonial funeral, remain constant. It would be hard to find a ballad which more vividly bridges the centuries, or which has shown itself more adaptable to social and geographical change, than does The Unfortunate Rake.

    Note that the street ballads/broadsides mentioned usually have the title The Unfortunate Lad. Lloyd may have taken the title of his version from the song collected by Frank Kidson from Kate Thompson of Knaresborough, Yorkshire in September 1892 [VWML FK/2/35, FK/3/94] , or from the tune The Unfortunate Rake.

  2. Ewan MacColl sang The Young Trooper Cut Down in His Prime on his albums Bless ’Em All and other British Army Songs (Riverside, 1957), Barrack Room Ballads (Topic, 1958), and Bundook Ballads (Topic, 1965). He noted:

    This ballad is probably the oldest of British barrack-room favourites. It exists in many variants, and is a standard song among all ‘sweats’. Veterans of World War I claim that the song originated in the first expeditionary force in France, but, of course, it is very much older, tracing back to the eighteenth century street ballad, The Unfortunate Rake. I recently heard a ninety year old actor, Norman Partridge, sing a version which he said was current with troops in the Boer War, and which varied hardly at all from the version included in this album, which was learned from Harry Cox, traditional singer from Norfolk.

    [The reference to Harry Cox seems to be a red herring. Cox’s version is quite different, and MacColl’s version is the one he collected from Harry Sladen in Openshaw in 1946 and which he included in his book The Singing Island (London: Mills Music, 1960)].

  3. Harry Cox sang The Young Sailor Cut Down in His Prime on 9 October 1953 to Peter Kennedy. This BBC recording 21483 was included in 1959 on the Folkways anthology Field Trip—England edited by Jean Ritchie.

  4. 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.

A.L. Lloyd also recorded this song as St James’s Hospital on his 1966 album First Person; this track was later included on his Fellside anthology CD Classic A.L. Lloyd. He 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 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”.

Old Blind Dogs sang Pills of White Mercury on their Lochshore albums Tall Tails (1994) and Live (1999). Ian F. Benzie noted:

More commonly known as The Streets of Laredo, (a niceified version for popular consumption), The Pills of White Mercury touches on the subject of syphilis, which was rife over a century ago. Today we have AIDS, which is, I suppose, the modem equivalent of the disease the song deals with. The end product is equally as horrendous.

I learned the song from the singing of Peter Hall of the Gaugers who performed it at the Aberdeen Folk Club several years ago. It is one of those songs that strike me as a “must learn immediately” song, so I did.

Harry Upton sang The Royal Albion, in a recording made at home in Balcombe, Sussex, to Mike Yates in between 1975 and 1977, on his 1978 Topic Special Project album Why Can’t It Always Be Saturday?. This track was also included in 1998 on the Topic anthology My Ship Shall Sail the Ocean (The Voice of the People Volume 2) and in 2015 on Upton’s Musical Tradition anthology Why Can’t It Always Be Saturday?. Rod Stradling noted:

When Frank Kidson printed a version of this song, which he called The Unfortunate Lad in Volume 1 of the Folk Song Society’s Journal he added this note, “The Unfortunate Lad is a ballad that will scarcely bare reprinting in its entirety”. Kidson believed The Unfortunate Lad to be an English version of the Irish song The Unfortunate Rake in which a young man is dying from venereal disease. Henry Parker Such printed The Unfortunate Lad in the 1850s, possibly using an 18th century song The Buck’s Elegy as a basis, and the following verse, which mentions some then common forms of medicinal remedy for venereal disease, was no doubt considered offensive by Kidson:

Had she but told me when she disordered me
Had she but told me of it in time.
I might have got salts and pills of white mercury
But now I’m cut down in the height of my prime.

Such’s sheet is further explicit in placing the young man outside London’s Lock Hospital which offered treatment for such diseases. Versions of this ballad have spread throughout the English speaking world. These include the black American song St James Infirmary and the cowboy Tom Sherman’s Barroom (The Dying Cowboy) sometimes called The Streets of Laredo.

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

Jack Beck sang The Pills of White Mercury in 2001 on his Tradition Bearers CD Half Ower, Half Ower tae Aberdour. He noted:

I learned this from Peter Hall’s singing; he collected it from Peter Anderson in an Aberdeenshire retirement home. Graphically explicit, this is the ancestor of The Streets of Laredo and The St James Infirmary Blues. I think of it as the Napoleonic wars’ equivalent of those AIDS public information messages on television! The chorus displays, in my opinion, a remarkable naiveté on the part of the young soldier.

Jim Causley sang Young Man Cut Down in His Prime in 2005 on the Fellside anthology of English traditional songs and their American variants, Song Links 2, and Sara Grey sang the related American variant The Bad Girl (One Morning in May). Paul Adams noted:

This widely-known song first appeared as a broadside entitled The Unfortunate Lad printed by Such in the late 18th century, when venereal diseases were rampant, so perhaps it was published as a warning. It gained much popularity and several new titles over the years, St James’s Hospital being a common one. It is the sad tale of a young man, generally a trooper or a sailor, cut down in his prime by syphilis. Many versions have the lines “If I had known about it in time, I might have got salts and pills of white mercury”, the treatment then for the disease. Stephen Sedley notes in his book The Seeds of Love that medical students had a maxim: “A night with Venus, a lifetime with Mercury”.

It was later in the life of the song that variants appeared where a woman was the victim. The Unfortunate Lass was collected in Wiltshire by Gardiner, There Is a Young Girl, collected by Francis Jekyll at East Meon, Hampshire in 1909 and Sharp collected The Comely Maiden from ‘Shepherd’ Hayden at Bampton 1909. Lucy Broadwood who collected widely in Sussex and Surrey in the 19th century noted: “A version of this was sung to me, inappropriately enough, by a little girl of seven in a Sussex field.”

The Young Man Cut Down in His Prime that Jim Causley sings was sung to Cecil Sharp by forty-five-year-old Tom Spracklan at Hambridge in Somerset in January 1904. Tom had served as a soldier when he was a young man, but at the time that Sharp met him, was working at a local farm, Earnshill Barn, as a dairyman.

Jim Malcolm sang Pills of White Mercury on his 2013 album Still. He noted:

I learned this song from Ian Benzie when he was with the Old Blind Dogs but I never sang it with the band myself. It’s a great song and I have always wanted to record it. There are many versions of this tale, including Streets of Laredo.

Laura Smyth and Ted Kemp sang The Trooper Cut Down in His Prime in 2014 on their EP The Charcoal Black and the Bonny Grey. Their notes again referred to Ewan MacColl:

The Trooper Cut Down in His Prime (provisionally Roud 2 and 23650) is a well-travelled song having been found in England, Ireland, Scotland, America, and beyond, but under different titles and featuring different characters. What in one case is a sailor, is in another a poor lass, and in another a cowboy on the streets of Laredo.

The British version centres on a poor victim of syphilis. He/she tells of their demise, either through promiscuity or a false hearted lover, and how they wish to be buried. The American version of St James’ Infirmary is along the same theme, but puts the song into third person, while the American cowboy is suffering from a gun shot in the chest. But often a common phrase can be heard:

Beat the drum slowly and play your fifes lowly,
Sound the dead march as you carry me along.

It can be quite a haunting song, and the British version deals with a not so pleasant subject matter!:

And six young maidens to carry white roses
So they won’t smell me as they pass me by.

The version we sing has a tune similar to others found in the English tradition. It was collected from Harry Sladen in Openshaw, 1946, by Ewan MacColl, and published in the book The Singing Island. Uniquely, this version features the line “And fire your bundhooks right over my coffin”, bundhooks being from the Hindustani word “banduk” meaning a rifle or musket [cf. Ewan MacColl’s album Bundook Ballads].

Rosie Upton sang St James Infirmary in 2014 on her CD Basket of Oysters. She noted:

From the American tradition but with its roots in English songs such as Sailor Cut Down in His Prime. It seems to be a song I’ve always known, I was certainly singing it when I was a student, and I can’t remember when I heard and adapted the different verses of chose to sing it from the woman’s point of view. A place few would willingly go.

Harp and a Monkey sang A Young Trooper Cut Down on their 2016 album War Stories. They noted:

Music has been used in many different ways by the Armed Forces, but this 18th century ballad (that started life as a folk song called The Unfortunate Rake) is unusual in that it was taken up and reworded by both the Army and Navy as an early form of health broadcast. The reason for this was the continual loss of manpower that resulted from sexually transmitted diseases. A song about the dangers of using prostitutes would lose none of its resonance in WW1—official statistics show that more than 416,000 cases of sexual diseases involving British and Dominion troops were treated during the course of the war. Quite a vivid reminder that contrary to popular misconception, not all of the men’s time was spent on military business! The woman’s voice is that of a veteran of the Imperial War Grave’s Commission; she tells how female employees of the commission had to help bury the war dead as there were too many bodies for the male staff to cope with alone.

Martin Simpson sang St. James’s Hospital in 2017 on his Topic album Trails & Tribulations.

Mossy Christian sang The Young Sailor on his 2020 CD Come Nobles and Heroes. He gave his source as:

Farm labourer and ‘catapult crackshot’ John William ‘Jack’ Holden sang The Young Sailor Cut Down in His Prime to Ruairidh Greig in 1970, at Keelby near Grimsby.

Jon Wilks talked with Debbie Armour about When I Was on Horseback / The Unfortunate Rake in November 2022 in Series 2, Episode 6 of his Old Songs Podcast.

Matt Quinn sang The Royal Albion, “from the singing of Harry Upton from Balcombe, Sussex”, on his 2024 download album Quinn the Roud: 1-10 in which he followed up Series 1 of his folk song podcast In the Roud with his own recordings of the Roud 1-10 songs.

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

Willie Mathieson sings Noo I’m a Young Man Cut Down in My Prime

As I was a-walking one bright summer morning,
As I was a-walking one bright summer day,
It’s who did I spy but one of my comrades,
Rolled up in white flannel and caulder than clay.

Chorus (repeated after every other verse):
O love, it is cruel, cruel to deceive me,
Why didn’t you tell me your sorrows in time?
My head is an-aching, my heart is a-breaking,
Noo, I’m a young man cut down in my prime.

It’s I have an aged father, likewise a mother,
Oft times they did tell me it would ruin me quick.
I never did believe them, I always did deceive them,
And still with the city girls I spent all my time.

Go send for my mother to wash and to dress me,
Go send for my sister to comb my black hair;
Go send for my brother to play the pipes slowly,
And play the dead march as they carry me along.

There’s a bunch of roses to lay on my coffin,
There’s a bunch of roses for my head and my feet;
There’s a bunch of roses to lay in the churchyard
To perfume the way as they carry me along.

At the gate of the churchyard to girlies were standing,
The one to the other in a whisper did say:
“Here comes the young man whose money we have squandered,
And noo they have laid him down in his cauld grave.”

Harry Cox sings The Young Sailor Cut Down in His Prime

As I was a-walking down by the Royal Albert,
Black was the night and cold was the day;
Who should I see there but one of my shipmates,
Wrapped in a blanket, far colder than clay.

He asked for a blanket to wrap ’round his head,
Likewise a candle to light him to bed;
His poor heart was breakin’, his poor head was achin’,
For he’s a young sailor cut down in his prime.

We’ll beat the big drums and we’ll play the pipes merrily,
Play the dead march as we carry him along,
Take him to the churchyard and fire three volleys o’er him
For he’s a young sailor cut down in his prime.

At the corner of the street you will see two girls standing,
One to the other did whisper and say:
“Here comes a young sailor whose money we’ll squander,
Here comes a young sailor cut down in his prime.”

His kind-hearted mother, his kind-hearted father,
Both of them wondered about his past life;
For along with the flash girls3 he would wander,
Along with the flash girls it was his delight.

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.”

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.”

Ewan MacColl sings The Young Trooper Cut Down in His Prime

As I was a-walkin’ down by the Royal Arsenal,
Early the morning though warm was the day,
When who should I see but one of my comrades,
All wrapped up in flannel, and cold as the clay.

Chorus (repeated after each verse):
Then beat the drum lowly and play your fife slowly,
And sound the dead march as you carry me along;
And fire your bundooks right over my coffin,
For I’m a young trooper cut down in my prime.

The bugles were playin’, his mates were a-prayin’,
The chaplain was kneelin’ down by his bed;
His poor head was achin’, his poor heart was breakin’,
This poor young trooper cut down in his prime.

Get six of my comrades to carry my coffin,
Six of my comrades to carry me on high;
And six young maidens to carry white roses,
So they won’t smell me as they pass me by.

Outside of the barracks you will find two girls standin’,
And one to the other she whispered and said:
“Here comes the young swaddy whose money we squandered,
Here comes the young trooper cut down in his prime.”

On the cross by his grave you will find these words written:
“All you young troopers take warnin’ by me;
Keep away from them flash girls who walk in the city;
Flash girls of the city have quite ruined me.”

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.”

Harry Upton sings The Royal Albion

As I strolled out, down by the Royal Albion
Dark was the morning and cold was the day
And who should I spy, was one of my old shipmates
He was wrapped in a blanket, much colder than clay
(Repeats last two lines).

He asked for a candle to light him to bed with
Likewise a blanket to wrap round his head
For his head was an-aching, his poor heart a- breaking
For he was a young sailor cut down in his prime

And at the top of a street I saw two girls standing
One to the other these words they did say
Here comes a young fellow whose money we have squandered,
Here comes a young sailor cut down in his prime

His poor aged father and his tender mother
Oft times had told him about his past life
Along with those flash girls all out in the city
’Long with those flash girls was his own heart’s delight

And now he’s dead and lies in his coffin
Six jolly sailor boys stands there by his side
And in each of their hands take a bunch of white roses
So they shall not smell him as they passes by

We’ll carry him to the church and we’ll beat the drum o’er him
We’ll play the dead march as we carries him along
Carry him to the churchyard and fire three volleys over him
For he is a young sailor cut down in his prime

At the top of his tombstone you will see these words printed
Come all you young fellows take a-warning by me
Don’t flirt with those flash girls all out in the city
But stay you at home and keep good company

Jim Causley sings Young Man Cut Down in His Prime

As I was a walking down by the Lock hospital,
Dark was the morning and cold was the day,
Who should I spy but one of my comrades
Wrapped in a blanket and cold as the clay.

So beat the drums slowly and play the pipes lowly,
Sound the dead march as we carry him on.
And over his coffin throw handfuls of laurel
For he’s the young man cut down in his prime.

“O mother, o mother, come sit you down by me,
Sit you down by me and pity my plight.
For my body is injured and sadly disordered,
All by a young woman, my own heart’s delight.

“Had she but told me when she did disorder me,
Had she but told me about it in time,
I might have got salts and pills of white mercury;
But now I’m cut down in the height of my prime.

“So get six jolly sailors to carry my coffin,
Six of my comrades to carry me on high.
And each one must carry a bunch of white roses
So as no one may smell me as we pass them by.”

All at the street corner there’s two girls a-standing,
One to the other she whispered and said.
“Here comes the young man whose money we squandered,
Here comes the young man cut down in his prime.”

On top of my tomb stone these words they are written,
All you young fellows take warning by me
Keep away from them flash girls who walk in the city
For them girls of the city was the ruin of me.

So beat the drums slowly and play the pipes lowly,
Sound the dead march as we carry him on.
And over his coffin throw handfuls of laurel
For he’s the young man cut down in his prime.

Links

For much more information see the Wikipedia entry for The Unfortunate Rake.