The Unfortunate Rake

In nineteenth-century broadside versions, the narrator meets a comrade outside a hospital for sexually transmitted diseases, known as a lock hospital. Despite the weather, the comrade is wrapped up in flannel. When asked why, he replies that he has been wronged by a woman, sometimes implied to be a prostitute or camp follower, but in the Such and Carrot broadsides referred to as 'my heart's delight'. She failed to warn him when she 'disordered' him, that she was infected with syphilis, and 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 asks the narrator to arrange for him a military funeral, for in the words of A.L. Lloyd, “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”.[3][4] 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. 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'.

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".[5] A follow-up piece by Goldstein (1959) in the same journal refers to "The Rake Cycle".[6]

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.[7]

According to Bishop and Roud (2014), the earliest-known variant, a late eighteenth-century/early nineteenth-century broadside in the Madden Collection, is called "The Buck's Elegy".[8] This is the lament of a young man about town, set in Covent Garden, a well-known haunt of London prostitutes.[9] 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 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.[10]

In 1911, Phillips Barry, who had studied folklore at Harvard, published an article claiming that the origins of "The Unfortunate Lad" were to be found in a fragment called "My Jewel, My Joy".[11] 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.[12] 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.[13]

It has been claimed that a similar story set to a different tune become the standard "St. James Infirmary Blues".[14] This claim has been disputed on various grounds.[15] Kenneth Lodewick commented: 'No folk connection has been shown, but the composer of the hit tune apparently knew the tradition - and used it.[16]

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.[17]

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.[18]

In most variants the narrator is a friend or parent who meets the young man or woman who is dying; 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.

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

• "The Buck's Elegy"
• "The Unfortunate Lad"; printed for John Carrots; digital version published online by the National Library of Scotland; dated by that source as around 1850; opening line refers to "The Lock Hospital".
• "The Unfortunate Lad"; printed by H P Such, London; digital version published online by the Bodleian; dated by that source as between 1863 and 1885; opening line refers to "The Lock Hospital". Very similar to the Carrots version, with different illustration and some other minor differences.

The Folkways LP appears to claim that A L Lloyd is singing a nineteenth century broadsheet version, but does not specify which broadsheet version. It does, however, provide a reference to the 1956 article by A L Lloyd (Op Cit), which explicitly refers to the Such version. However, the words sung by Lloyd are not those in the Such broadside.

Other variants not on the Folkways LP include:

• "Only the Heartaches/Only the Hangman is Waiting For Me" -belonging to the cowboy branch of the family, the narrator contemplates murdering his lover and the consequences of such an act - recorded by Rex Allen.
• "Young Girl Cut Down in Her Prime".[28]
• "When I Was on Horseback"[29] - recorded by Steeleye Span.[30]
• "Dyin' Crapshooter's Blues"- This song bears a few similarities to the more famous "St. James Infirmary Blues". Similarly chronicling an amoral life gone wrong, this song's most famous interpretation was done by Blind Willie McTell, but is based around crooked gambler Jesse Williams. McTell sings of a cold hearted gambler, who becomes distressed about a relationship with "Sweet Lorene", he comes into conflict with the police, and is shot down. Like in "St. James Infirmary Blues", Williams wants "six crapshooters to be my pallbearers". Lyrical similarities signify that the song shares "The Unfortunate Rake" with "St. James Infirmary Blues" as a common ancestor.

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

In 2016 a version of the song renamed to 'A Young Trooper Cut Down' was recorded on the album 'War Stories' by Harp and a monkey. This story tells of the use of the song as a piece of propaganda by the military warning on the dangers of syphilis during WW1.

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 acapella by the actor Brendan Gleeson.

• Liner notes from the Folkways album