The Unfortunate Rake

Last updated

The Unfortunate Rake is a ballad (Roud 2 , Laws Q26), [1] which through the folk process has evolved into a large number of variants, including allegedly the country and western song "Streets of Laredo". [2]

Contents

The Roud Broadside Index contains exactly two songs with the title "The Unfortunate Rake": "Jenny Gordon or The Unfortunate Rake" from the Madden collection, and another printed in Gateshead, England, whose first line is "Attend to the tale of a wand’rer forlorn". These do not seem to be connected with the songs that came to be seen as part of an "Unfortunate Rake" cycle. [3] There are also several tunes named "The Unfortunate Rake". [4]

Synopsis

In nineteenth-century broadside versions, the narrator meets a comrade outside a hospital for sexually transmitted diseases, known as a lock hospital. The comrade is wrapped up in flannel. When asked why, he replies that it is because his body is injured, 'disordered'. He has received this 'injury' from a woman, referred to as "my own heart's delight". She failed to warn him when she "disordered" him, so he was unable to obtain the medication that would have saved him ("salts and the pills of white mercury"). As a result he is dying, "cut down in his prime". He had ignored his father’s frequent rebukes and warnings about his wicked ways. He asks the narrator to arrange his funeral. He requests that his coffin be carried by six "jolly fellows", his "pall" by six "pretty maidens". They should carry "bunches of roses" to cover the smell of the corpse. His coffin should be strewn with roses and lavender. He further instructs that they should "muffle their drums" but "play their pipes merrily", specifying the "dead march" as music, and asking for "guns" to be fired "right over my coffin". [5]

Title and origins

The term "The Unfortunate Rake" is sometimes used as a generic name for types of variant, or for all variants, irrespective of the titles and/or the lyrics of the source material. For example, writing in the United States, Lodewick (1955), referring to a group of early variants that involve a soldier and a camp follower, as opposed to a group of versions that involve a prostitute, writes, "For identification, I shall call this by its most popular title, 'The Unfortunate Rake'. [6] A follow-up piece by Goldstein (1959) in the same journal refers to "The Rake Cycle". [7]

The variant or variants on which these writers base their use of the title "The Unfortunate Rake" are not cited. Early twentieth century British references to this title are references to a tune, not to song lyrics, with the idea that the tune may have originally been used for a song called "The Unfortunate Lad" being offered as a conjecture. [8]

According to Bishop and Roud (2014), the earliest-known variant, a late eighteenth-century or early nineteenth-century broadside in the Madden Collection, is called "The Buck's Elegy". [9] This is the lament of a young man about town, set in Covent Garden, a well-known haunt of London prostitutes. [10] The moribund young man bewails the fact that he did not know what was wrong with him in time, in which case he could have taken mercury to treat the ailment, and he makes requests about his funeral. This version includes what Bishop and Roud refer to as "explicit clues" that the persona has a sexually transmitted disease, likely advanced syphilis, in the form of references to mercury and other treatments for that disease.

Bishop and Roud state: "Despite the number and variety of collected versions, the early history of the song is still unclear, and surprisingly few nineteenth-century broadside copies have survived." They state that the song probably dates from 1740 or earlier, but that "at present we have no evidence to support such a theory". Some versions, they explain, provide clues to a sexually transmitted disease as the cause of the persona's woes; others "manage to avoid or disguise this element". They also comment that many versions incorporate a "military-style" funeral, with pipes, drums, and rifles. They describe it as "one of the most versatile songs in the Anglo-American tradition, as it seems able to adapt itself to any group or situation."

A nineteenth century broadside published by the printer Such of London is referred to in some twentieth century literature on the song. This version, and several others of that time, is called "The Unfortunate Lad". The first line of this song is "As I was a walking down by the Lock Hospital." This term, which referred to a hospital for the treatment of sexually transmitted diseases, is another item referred to by Bishop and Roud as an "explicit hint". Several digitised images of broadside version of this song may be found online. [11]

In 1911, Phillips Barry, who had studied folklore at Harvard, published an article claiming that the origins of "The Unfortunate Lad", which he incorrectly termed ‘The Unfortunate Rake’, were to be found in a fragment called "My Jewel, My Joy". [12] His argument was based on a one-verse fragment provided with a tune of the same name. This had been collected by William Forde in Cork and published in 1909 by P W Joyce. [13] The single verse is as follows:

My jewel, my joy, don't trouble me with the drum,
Play the dead march as my corpse goes along;
And over my body throw handfuls of laurel,
And let them all know that I'm going to my rest.

The many variants feature various young soldiers, sailors, maids, and cowboys, being "cut down in their prime" and contemplating their deaths. [14]

It has been claimed that a similar story set to a different tune become the standard "St. James Infirmary Blues". [15] This claim has been disputed on various grounds. [16] Kenneth Lodewick commented: "No folk connection has been shown, but the composer of the hit tune apparently knew the tradition – and used it." [17]

In the 2018 Katharine Briggs Memorial Lecture, Professor Richard Jenkins discusses several aspects of what he calls the "folkloristic narrative" relating to these songs. He asserts that several aspects of this narrative may be shown to be "dubious, if not incorrect", and suggests that the way in which a "misleading tale" became accepted as "conventional knowledge" has implications for those engaged in the study of folklore. [18]

Variants

Lists of variants appear both online and in the literature on the song. One source of documentation is the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library at the English Folk Dance and Song Society. The Broadside Index and the Folk Song Index are both compiled by Steve Roud and are searchable online. [19]

Tunes

A number of different variants use the same melody, including the sub-family known as "The Cowboy's Lament", of which "Streets of Laredo" is perhaps currently the best known. This tune is also used for a different song, "The Bard of Armagh".

The nineteenth century broadsheet versions from the British Isles were printed without tunes.

In 1904, it was conjectured that words of the song "The Unfortunate Lad" had originally been sung to an Irish tune called "The Unfortunate Rake", which had been printed with different words, or no words, in two collections of Irish tunes, one by Crosby, the other by Belden. [8] For example, the words provided for the air "The Unfortunate Rake" by Crosby are about a wandering harpist from Connaught, who is seeking pity and hospitality from his listeners.

English folk song collectors in the early twentieth century found different tunes being used for variants.

The melody for a variant called "The Unfortunate Lad", set in Rippleton Gardens, was published in 1904. [20]

Another melody, this time to a variant called "The Young Girl Cut Down in Her Prime", was collected in 1909 and published in 1913. [21] The tune is noted as "mixolydian with dorian influence". In a note to this article, Cecil Sharp reported that he had collected six different tunes for this song, and he published the ones he stated were the "two best tunes - both of the Henry Martin type". The first is labelled "dorian", the second "aeolian/dorian".

In 1915, yet another tune was published in the Journal of the Folk Song Society; this time stated to be similar to one used for rush-cart Morris dancing at Moston, near Manchester, England. [22]

In 1918, English folk song collector Cecil Sharp, who was visiting the US, collected a version which used the phrase "St James' Hospital" in Dewey, Virginia. This song was called "The Sailor Cut Down in His Prime". Sharp's field notes were available for researchers, though the song was not published until after Sharp's death, when his collaborator, Maud Karpeles, produced a second volume of songs from the Southern Appalachians. [23]

By 1937, the English Folk Song Society had become the English Folk Dance and Song Society, and in that year, another tune was published, this time to accompany a variant beginning with a reference to "Bath Hospital". [24] The tune is described as "dorian".

In the 1950s a version sung by A L Lloyd and called "The Unfortunate Rake" was released, with Kenneth Goldstein as editor of the LP called "Street Songs of England", and the same version was included on Goldstein's later Folkways LP, "The Unfortunate Rake". Though this version is described on the liner notes as a nineteenth century broadside version, and is often taken as such in subsequent literature, Lloyd's practice in the past had been to publish "composite" versions of songs, to give what he called "greater continuity or higher dramatic interest". [25] The liner notes to the second LP are often cited as a source of historical information about this song, though their reliability is questionable as they were compiled by Goldstein, who had a business education and was in the business of selling recorded folk music. [26] The version sung, and possibly devised, by Lloyd appears to be the earliest available variant using the title "The Unfortunate Rake" for which there is clear evidence.

These liner notes are the main origin of an often repeated incorrect idea that an early version of the song was collected in Dublin, Ireland. In those notes Goldstein cites an article by Kenneth Lodewick as a source. [27] In that article, Lodewick incorrectly substitutes "Dublin" for "Cork", which is the place of collection given in the source material he cites. That same source material is where A L Lloyd obtained the tune he uses on the LP. It is a collection of Irish tunes gathered by William Forde in Ireland, and published by P W Joyce, of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland in 1909. The tune in question is called "My Jewel, My Joy", and not "The Unfortunate Rake". [28] Lloyd's rationale for selecting this tune is outlined in the essay cited by Goldstein in the liner notes to the second LP. [29]

None of these versions, with the exception of the 1950s version by A L Lloyd, and the version collected in Virginia, includes a reference to the "St James" hospital or "infirmary", though some refer to a differently named hospital.

Lyrics

In most variants the narrator is a friend or parent who meets the song's dying subject; in other variants the narrator is the one dying.

The 1960 Folkways Records album also titled The Unfortunate Rake features 20 different variations of the ballad. The liner notes of this album claim that A L Lloyd is singing a nineteenth century broadsheet version, but does not specify which. The notes refer to an article by A L Lloyd. [30] This article explicitly refers to the Such version, and the last two verses are quoted accurately, but despite this, the words sung by Lloyd are not those in the Such broadside.

Variants not in this album include a number of nineteenth century broadsheet versions, including:

Other versions include:

A later song that draws on elements from the ballad is the Eric Bogle song "No Man's Land".

A version of the song, renamed to "A Young Trooper Cut Down", was recorded on the 2016 Harp and a Monkey album War Stories. This version tells of the song being used as First World War military propaganda warning soldiers of the dangers of syphilis.

In 2018 the song was prominently featured in "The Mortal Remains," the final episode of the Coen Brothers The Ballad of Buster Scruggs under the title "The Unfortunate Lad." The song was performed a capella by the actor Brendan Gleeson.

Related Research Articles

"St. James Infirmary" is an American blues and jazz standard that emerged, like many others, from folk traditions. Louis Armstrong brought the song to lasting fame through his 1928 recording, on which Don Redman is named as composer; later releases credit "Joe Primrose", a pseudonym used by musician manager, music promoter and publisher Irving Mills. The melody is eight bars long, unlike songs in the classic blues genre, where there are 12 bars. It is in a minor key, and has a 4
4
time signature, but has also been played in 3
4
.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barbara Allen (song)</span> Traditional ballad

"Barbara Allen" is a traditional folk song that is popular throughout the English-speaking world and beyond. It tells of how the eponymous character denies a dying man's love, then dies of grief soon after his untimely death.

"Lily of the West" is a traditional British and Irish folk song, best known today as an American folk song, listed as number 957 in the Roud Folk Song Index. The American version is about a man who travels to Louisville and falls in love with a woman named Mary, Flora or Molly, the eponymous Lily of the West. He catches Mary being unfaithful to him, and, in a fit of rage, stabs the man she is with, and is subsequently imprisoned. In spite of this, he finds himself still in love with her. In the original version, the Lily testifies in his defense and he is freed, though they do not resume their relationship.

"The Daemon Lover" – also known as "James Harris", "A Warning for Married Women", "The Distressed Ship Carpenter", "James Herries", "The Carpenter’s Wife", "The Banks of Italy", or "The House-Carpenter" – is a popular ballad dating from the mid-seventeenth century, when the earliest known broadside version of the ballad was entered in the Stationers' Register on 21 February 1657.

Reynardine is a traditional English ballad. In the versions most commonly sung and recorded today, Reynardine is a werefox who attracts beautiful women so that he can take them away to his castle. What fate meets them there is usually left ambiguous.

"Foggy Dew" or "Foggy, Foggy Dew" is an English folk song with a strong presence in the South of England and the Southern United States in the nineteenth century. The song describes the outcome of an affair between a weaver and a girl he courted. It is cataloged as Laws No. O03 and Roud Folk Song Index No. 558. It has been recorded by many traditional singers including Harry Cox, and a diverse range of musicians including Benjamin Britten, Burl Ives, A.L. Lloyd and Ye Vagabonds have arranged and recorded popular versions of the song.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Holly and the Ivy</span> Traditional British folk Christmas carol

"The Holly and the Ivy" is a traditional British folk Christmas carol, listed as number 514 in the Roud Folk Song Index. The song can be traced only as far as the early nineteenth century, but the lyrics reflect an association between holly and Christmas dating at least as far as medieval times. The lyrics and melody varied significantly in traditional communities, but the song has since become standardised. The version which is now popular was collected in 1909 by the English folk song collector Cecil Sharp in the market town of Chipping Campden in Gloucestershire, England, from a woman named Mary Clayton.

"Streets of Laredo", also known as "The Dying Cowboy", is a famous American cowboy ballad in which a dying ranger tells his story to another cowboy. Members of the Western Writers of America chose it as one of the Top 100 Western songs of all time.

"Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight" is the English common name representative of a very large class of European ballads.

"Geordie" is an English language folk song concerning the trial of the eponymous hero whose lover pleads for his life. It is listed as Child ballad 209 and Number 90 in the Roud Folk Song Index. The ballad was traditionally sung across the English speaking world, particularly in England, Scotland and North America, and was performed with many different melodies and lyrics. In recent times, popular versions have been performed and recorded by numerous artists and groups in different languages, mostly inspired by Joan Baez's 1962 recording based on a traditional version from Somerset, England.

"The Broomfield Hill", "The Broomfield Wager" "The Merry Broomfield", "The Green Broomfield", "A Wager, a Wager", or "The West Country Wager" (Child 43, Roud 34) is a traditional English folk ballad.

"Seventeen Come Sunday", also known as "As I Roved Out", is an English folk song which was arranged by Percy Grainger for choir and brass accompaniment in 1912 and used in the first movement of Ralph Vaughan Williams' English Folk Song Suite in 1923. The words were first published between 1838 and 1845.

"Bonnie Annie" is a folk ballad recorded from the Scottish and English traditions. Scottish texts are often called Bonnie Annie or The Green Banks of Yarrow, English texts are most often called The Banks of Green Willow. Other titles include The Undutiful Daughter, The High Banks O Yarrow, The Watery Grave, Green Willow, There Was a Rich Merchant that Lived in Strathdinah and The Merchant's Daughter.

"The Trees They Grow So High" is a Scottish folk song. The song is known by many titles, including "The Trees They Do Grow High", "Daily Growing", "Long A-Growing" and "Lady Mary Ann".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Dowie Dens o Yarrow</span> Scottish border ballad

"The Dowie Dens o Yarrow", also known as "The Braes of Yarrow" or simply "Yarrow", is a Scottish border ballad. It has many variants and it has been printed as a broadside, as well as published in song collections. It is considered to be a folk standard, and many different singers have performed and recorded it.

<i>The Unfortunate Rake</i> (album) 1960 compilation album by Various Artists

The Unfortunate Rake is an album released by Folkways Records in 1960, containing 20 different variations from what is sometimes called the 'Rake' cycle of ballads. The album repeats a claim made by Phillips Barry in 1911 that the song is Irish in origin, a claim made on the basis of a fragment called "My Jewel My Joy" collected in Ireland in 1848. The song is incorrectly said to have been heard in Dublin, when the cited source states it was collected and had been heard in Cork. However, the notes to the album make no mention of what is now thought to be the oldest written version of the song, one called "The Buck's Elegy".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Westmoreland Lock Hospital</span> Hospital in Dublin, Ireland

The Westmoreland Lock Hospital was a hospital for venereal disease originally located at Donnybrook and later moved to Lazar's Hill, Dublin, Ireland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Folk process</span>

In the study of folklore, the folk process is the way folk material, especially stories, music, and other art, is transformed and re-adapted in the process of its transmission from person to person and from generation to generation. The folk process defines a community—the "folk community"—in and through which folklore is transmitted. While there is a place for professional and trained performers in a folk community, it is the act of refinement and creative change by community members within the folk tradition that defines the folk process.

"The Unfortunate Lad" is the correct title of a song printed without a tune on a number of 19th century ballad sheets by Such of London and Carrots and possibly others.

The Lark in the Morning is an English folk song. It was moderately popular with traditional singers in England, less so in Scotland, Ireland and the United States. It starts as a hymn to the ploughboy's life, and often goes on to recount a sexual encounter between a ploughboy and a maiden resulting in pregnancy.

References

  1. Richard Jenkins, 2019, The Unfortunate Rake’s Progress: A Case Study of the Construction of Folklore by Scholars, Folklore, 130.2,111-132
  2. See Burl Ives Cowboy's Lament.
  3. Richard Jenkins, op cit, pp121
  4. Richard Jenkins (2019) The Unfortunate Rake’s Progress: A Case Study in the Construction of Folklore by Collectors and Scholars, Folklore, 130:2, 111-132
  5. Bodleian Library, University of Oxford. Harding B15(341)
  6. Lodewick, K “The Unfortunate Rake" and His Descendants. Western Folklore Vol. 14, No. 2 (April 1955), pp. 98-109
  7. Goldstein K (1959) Western Folklore Vol. 18, No. 1. pp. 35-38
  8. 1 2 "Songs from the Collection of Mr Frank Kidson", Journal of the Folk Song Society, Vol 1, No 5, p 254.
  9. Bishop, J. and Roud, S (2014) The New Penguin Book of English Folk Songs, Penguin Classics, Kindle Edition.
  10. Anon (1773, "Harris's List of Covent Garden Ladies or Man of Pleasure's Kalendar for the year 1773", an annually printed list of prostitutes.
  11. "The Unfortunate Lad". Archived from the original on 2018-07-29.
  12. Barry, P (1911) Irish Folk Song. The Journal of American Folklore. Vol. 24, No. 93. pp 332-343
  13. Joyce PW (1909) Old Irish Folk Music and Songs, Boston.
  14. "Bad Girl's Lament, The (St. James' Hospital; The Young Girl Cut Down in her Prime) [Laws Q26]". www.fresnostate.edu.[ dead link ]
  15. e.g.Lloyd, A L (1956) "Background to St James' Infirmary", Sing Magazine, Vol 3, pp19-21
  16. See, for example, Harwood, Robert W ((2015) "I Went Down to St James Infirmary", Canada, Harland Press.
  17. Lodewick, K "The Unfortunate Rake" and His Descendants. Western Folklore Vol. 14, No. 2 (Apr., 1955), p.99
  18. Jenkins, R "The Unfortunate Rake's Progress: A Case Study of the Construction of Folklore by Collectors and Scholars". Folklore, Volume 130, Issue No 2, June 2019
  19. "Search and browse tips". The Vaughan Williams Memorial Library.
  20. "Songs from the Collection of Mr Frank Kidson", Journal of the Folk Song Society, Vol 1, No 5, pp 228-257.
  21. Songs From Various Counties, Journal of the Folk Song Society, Vol 4, No 17, p 325.
  22. "Songs of Love and Country Life", Journal of the Folk Song Society, Vol 5, No 19, p 193
  23. Karpeles, M (Ed) Sharp C (1936) English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians, Vol 2,
  24. Journal of the EFDS Society, Vol 3, No 2, December 1937, p 129
  25. Study of Lloyd by E David Gregory
  26. See, for example, the Wikipedia page on Goldstein
  27. Lodewick, K "The Unfortunate Rake" and His Descendants. Western Folklore Vol. 14, No. 2 (Apr., 1955), pp. 98-109
  28. Joyce, P W, (1909) "Old Irish Folk Music and Songs. A Collection of 842 Irish Airs and Songs Hitherto Unpublished", London, Longmans.
  29. Lloyd, A L (1956) "Background to St James' Infirmary", Sing Magazine, Vol 3, pp19-21
  30. Lloyd, A L (1956) ‘Background to St. James’ Infirmary. Sing Magazine. Vol 3, pp19-21
  31. "Young Girl Cut Down in Her Prime / The Unfortunate Lass / Bad Girl (Roud 2; Laws Q26)". mainlynorfolk.info.
  32. "When I Was on Horseback / The Dying Soldier (Roud 2; Laws Q26)". mainlynorfolk.info.
  33. When I Was on Horseback