Brent Baxter

Hey, Kyle!  Thanks for sharing with us.  I’m not familiar with “St. James Infirmary.”  I had to look it up to see there were some other versions of it.

Did you re-write the lyrics?  I’ve listened to a little of another version, and the lyrics are a little different.

In other words, I’m not sure what to day about your writing, because I’m not sure what writing is yours.

However, I REALLY dig what IS here.  I don’t know what’s yours and what isn’t… and I guess that’s a good thing.  I really like it.  Cool dadgummed song.

Hope that helps!  Please take a moment to leave a comment on another writer’s song.  It doesn’t have to be super-detailed or anything.  Just a thought or two about the song.  (Also, the best way to GET feedback is to GIVE feedback.)  Thanks!

Kyle Mercer

God, you make me feel so damn old. It never occurred to me that someone might be young enough to have never heard ‘St. James’ Infirmary.’ But then, if you rattled off the names of the top twenty-to-twenty-five recording artists in Nashville right now, I probably wouldn’t recognize but maybe two or three and wouldn’t have a clue what their hits sounded like.

The definitive version of ‘St. James Infirmary’ was recorded by Louis Armstrong in December of 1928, released the following month and is still a standard in Dixieland band circles. It’s one of those songs that makes musicians groan whenever somebody in the audience requests it, because they’ve played it so many times.

Lyrically the song’s roots go back to at least the 1700’s, to an old English ballad usually known as ‘The Unfortunate Rake,’ a cautionary tale about the ‘sporting life’ wherein the protagonist is dying of syphilis in a hospital. ‘Streets of Laredo’ is another descendant of the same song.

When it came across the water, the ballad eventually evolved into a piece about a man bemoaning his lover’s death in a charity hospital. Baxter and Moore copyrighted a version they claimed to have written called ‘Gambler’s Blues’ in 1925 and first recorded in 1927. The song is sometimes performed under that title. It was a signature piece for Dave Van Ronk back in the sixties. But Carl Sanburg, the poet, published a folk song collection called ‘American Songbag’ in 1927 that had two versions of ‘Those Gambler’s Blues’ in it. So the piece had obviously been around for a while.

And the melody that we associate with the song today was apparently a sort of standard that dates back to before WWI. Musicians were so familiar with it, that they would fall back on it in jam sessions, somewhat like the way blues guys use a twelve bar blues today. The melody was first recorded in 1924 on an instrumental piece called ‘Charleston Cabin.’

A couple of months after Armstrong recorded and released his version, Irving Mills, the publisher, decided he wrote the tune and, being Irving Mills, was able to effectively take the song out of public domain. Go figure. That copyright still stands today and will remain in effect until 1924 I think, even though Mills testified in a New York state court in the 1930’s that the music and lyrics were not original to him. (This was a trademark case involving the use of the name ‘St. James’ Infirmary’ in the title of a rival publisher’s version, not a federal copyright lawsuit.) Mills and his lawyers eventually squashed all other copyright challengers.

‘Billy Bobbie’s’ version should be transformative enough to pass a derivative test in today’s judicial climate. The first two lines of the first verse and the first line of the refrain are, if I remember right, the only lyrics that can be found in Armstrong’s version, but have public domain precedents. The Armstrong version’s only unique feature was the use of the name, ‘St. James’ Infirmary.’ And you can’t copyright a name. But I have a version that substitutes ‘St. Joseph’s Infirmary’ just in case.

There are some other lines in this version that reference and pay homage to traditional lyrics, but twist them around. For example, pallbearing soldiers and singing maidens in ‘An Unfortunate Rake’ have been transformed into lonely sailors and strumpets here. But none of the traditional versions have anything resembling the discussion with the doctor or the descent into Hades or a return to the hospital for revenge. And the melody used was recorded five years before Mills’ copyright application.

All of which is probably much more than you cared to know. It was more than I ever expected to know. But when the song popped out, I thought it was in public domain and when I found out it wasn’t, I had to do some research.

And if you haven’t ever heard Armstrong’s recording, you should look it up on YouTube. This was Armstrong back in the day when he was still young and hungry and a musical explorer, as opposed to his later years when he was singing for Disney. The Hot Five and Hot Seven jazz recordings he made back in the twenties were an inspiration for an entire generation of musicians and among the finest recordings ever made.