Ow, sweet. I thought that sounded like an intermrdiate step between St. James Infirmary and Streets of Laredo. I had been told that the latter was a cleaned up version of the former, but I could never see how, really. Al's song struck me as a missing link in that evolution.

Also, Joannie and Charlie Utter discussing the tree and its story was just lovely.

"Streets of Laredo" is a famously filthy song with something like 12,000 verses. Though who knows what iteration it was in during that era.

If you say so. The one I know, a guy is shot and dies. Like I said, cleaned up version.

IM has a nice singing voice. I was pretty impressed. Somehow it was kind of unexpected... I mean, I like how he talks, but that doesn't always mean they can sing. Deadwood spoiler Are Joni and Jane, you know, Joni/Jane? Corwood, while you're here, about The Wire, how do you feel about Teacher!Pres. Of course, he's getting set up for another thankless job but I've been fond of that character for a long time.

If you say so. The one I know, a guy is shot

Research says (as noted) that it's linked
to "St. James Infirmary" which was derived
from "The Unfortunate Rake."

THE UNFORTUNATE RAKE


As I was a-walking down by St. James' 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."


This l9th century broadside text may not be the grand-daddy of all later
versions of the much travelled "Rake" cycle, 'but it is probably
sufficiently close enough to the original ballad to warrant its use as a
starting point for an examination of the whole family of related parodies
and recensions.


Only a handful of texts reported from tradition have been as graphically
frank in their commentary on the cause of the young man's demise as that
given in this early version. Later texts have tended to treat the matter
obliquely, or have rationalized the situation by having death caused by
other, usually more violent, means. KG

That sounds closer to Al's version than the St. James Infirmary or Streets of Laredo lyrics that I know. Interesting.

erika, I'm thinking Jane taking Joannie's hand while walking the kids to the new school and again after Tolliver's visit points to yes.

The Unfortunate Rake: A Study in the Evolution of a Ballad (Notes by Kenneth Goldstein) (Folkways FA 2305, 1960) [LP], which includes:

SIDE I
1. The Unfortunate Rake (Sung by A.L. Lloyd)
2. The Trooper Cut Down in His Prime (Sung by Ewan McColl)
3. The Young Sailor Cut Down in His Prime (Sung by Harry Cox)
4. Now I'm a Young Man Cut Down in My Prime (Sung by Willie Mathieson)
5. The Bad Girl's Lament (Sung by Wade Hemsworth)
6. One Morning in May (Sung by Hally Wood)
7. Bright Summer Morning (Sing by Mrs. Viola Penn)
8. The Girl in the Dilger Case (Sung by D.K. Wilgus)
9. The Cowboy's Lament (Sung by Bruce Buckley)
10. The Streets of Laredo (Sung by Harry Jackson)

SIDE II
1. St. James Hospital (Sung by Alan Lomax)
2. Gambler's Blues (Sung by Dave Van Ronk)
3. I Once Was a Carman in the Big Mountain Con (Sung by Guthrie Meade)
4. The Lineman's Hymn (Sung by Rosalie Sorrels)
5. The Wild Lumberjack (Sung by Kenneth S. Goldstein)
6. A Sun Valley Song (Sung by Jan Brunvand)
7. The Ballad of Bloody Thursday (Sung by John Greenway)
8. The Streets of Hamtramck (Sung by Bill Friedland)
9. The Ballad of Sherman Wu (Sung by Pete Seeger)
10. The Professor's Lament (Sung by Roger Abrahams)

"The Unfortunake Rake" is also the subject of a Greil Marcus essay, IIRC. -t's answer on Joanie and Jane is my answer, Erika.

Huh. I'm not up on that stuff.(folk ballads, not femmeslash. But I'm always impressed with the work that must go into Deadwood. It makes me so annoyed that my family only knows it as the show where they talk nasty. But I'm descended from hooples, for the most part. I would go into it further but I'd probably want somebody to go down on me first.

Hec, do you have a [pre] tag before the title in post # 3391? I think it's stretching the screen.