The Unfortunate Lad

"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.

Sometimes incorrectly termed The Unfortunate Rake, it is believed to be the ancestor of many variants collected in England and elsewhere, as well as of the American songs The Cowboy’s Lament, Streets of Laredo, and, more controversially, St James’ Infirmary. Folklorists have sometimes seen this as a good example of the way a song evolves. For example, Lodewick commented that the story connecting variants "...provides a good example of environmental changes that take place in a song.

Lyrics

As I was a walking down by the Lock Hospital,
As I was walking one morning of late,
Who did I spy but my own dear comrade
Wrapp'd up in flannel, so hard was his fate.

Chorus
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.

I boldly stepped up to him, and kindly did ask him,
Why he was wrapped up in flannel so white?
My body is injured and sadly disordered,
All by a young woman, my own heart's delight.

My father oft told me, and oftentimes chided me,
And said my wicked ways would never do,
But I never minded him, nor ever heeded him,
I always kept up my wicked ways.

Get six jolly fellows to carry my coffin,
And six pretty maidens to bear up my pall,
And give to each of them bunches of roses,
They they may not smell me as they go along.

Over my coffin put handfuls of lavender,
Handfuls of lavender on every side,
Bunches of roses all over my coffin,
Saying, there goes a young man cut down in his prime.

Muffle your drums, play your pipes merrily,
Play the dead march as you go along,
And fire your guns over my coffin,
There goes an unfortunate lad to his home

Treatment in folkloric literature

In the early 20th century, the American folklorist Phillips Barry published two articles that alluded to the Such printing, but incorrectly gave the title as "The Unfortunate Rake". In the first he wrote: "... very few Irish songs have become Americanized, - due doubtless to the exile's love of his native country. Two, however, are notable exceptions. Of these, one, a song of the camp, entitled " The Unfortunate Rake," is in its original form, as found on Such broadsides, too vulgar to reprint here." Phillips quoted the last verse of a song published by Such and quoted below, actually entitled "The Unfortunate Lad".

This title and the assertion about its existence as a Such broadside was taken up and repeated, to the extent that a folkloristic narrative about groups of songs believed to be descended from ‘The Unfortunate Rake’ became received wisdom and can be found repeated many times on the internet and in paper publications. Yet it is "almost certainly wrong" and the use of that title is "... most likely an egregious mistake, a cumulative compounding of the original error."' The claim about an Irish origin is also dubious at best.

In the 1940s and 50s, English journalist, folk enthusiast and recording artist A L Lloyd published an article believed to be the first to link The Unfortunate Lad/Rake with the blues song St James' Infirmary. Some years later he published a revised article putting forward broadly the same view.

An album called English Street Songs which anthologised a collection of supposedly related songs, was produced by Kenneth Goldstein, who wrote liner notes to accompany it. This recording played an important part in bringing the genealogical story and the incorrect title to a wider audience.

“By the end of this long, and sometimes indirect, conversation between folk music scholars and collectors, a musical genealogy was in place and widely accepted… A ‘song of the camp’ known generically as ‘The Unfortunate Rake’, apparently of eighteenth century Irish provenance (if not actual origin), evolved into a host of other British variants, and travelled across the Atlantic, eventually to give rise to ‘The Streets of Laredo’ and, perhaps more distantly, ‘St. James Infirmary’.