The old standard, St. James Infirmary, has a timeless feel to it, but also seemingly an endless variety of lyrics, choruses, and melodies. On youtube, a 'Dr. H. Science' explains the infirmary as a clinic, as opposed to a larger hospital. He supposes the doctor is busy. And in the more traditional version, it seems the doctor checks on her, but goes to other patients, while she quietly dies on the "long, white table".

He makes the point that is lost in other contexts when people dispute this and that. Old folk tradition carries forward certain key elements of the incident or story. But the details, the background, are known to the people at the time and need not be restated. Once that generation passes, or the next, the tale becomes obscure because the original details and background have now been lost to later generations. Even today, as yesterday, it's difficult to tell the full story at the time because of bias. One believes the story should be such, and other details and background will be intentionally omitted, or even distorted.

Many artists have, and should have, their own rendition of this. Clapton and Dr. John. A beautiful version by Louis Armstrong. Bobby Bland. Roger McGuinn with the 'traditional' version. Jonas Jones slow Armstrong-like version as music for Fred Astaire and the sultry Barrie Chase, classic early television. And there's of course, Cab Calloway, who performed this on television (and also on the Ed Sullivan show, performed some excerpts from his Broadway role as Sporting Life in Porgy n Bess). It was from Calloway that I was introduced to the song via the Betty Boop cartoon, as were many. It's a take off on Snow White. Betty, her executioners Bimbo and Koko having accidentally fallen into a well when refusing to do her in, tumbles down a hill in a ball of ice which is quickly shaped by falling through objects on 'the trail' into an ice coffin. The coffin makes quick speed to the dwarves house. And they carry/slide it to the Mystery Cave. There the evil queen finds them, and the ghosts of Koko and Bimbo. And Cab Calloway sings for Koko, and Koko dances like him (obviously based on film of Calloway). It's a strange 'morphing' experience, some commenting have suggested, 'drug induced'. I don't know about that.

Calloway's take places himself, the singer, as the one who wishes the woman well. It's the same with Jones, Armstrong, and others. He sings that he seems to know she's dead, but that her spirit can search the whole world and not find someone as dangerous or conceited, well, as 'sweet' as himself. In that, it is much sleazier than the 'traditional' if one remembers that Calloway's Minnie the Moocher is almost interchangeable with this song, and perhaps is also how he interprets St. James Infirmary. Calloway liked to sing of the 'reefer', marijuana, in other songs. Perhaps 'poor Min', the druggie prostitute with the 'heart of gold', is laid out on the table at the infirmary. Calloway speaks of cocaine, and heroin, in Minnie the Moocher. It seems something added by himself, in keeping with what seemed to be his desire, in that era, to shock perhaps just for its own sake, perhaps to publicize his band, even bad publicity. Cab seemed to want to 'get a rise' out of people.

So when Cab gets to 'now that you have heard my story', there's not a lot of story there. But with the verse about the twenty dollar gold coin, the jazz band, the like-minded pallbearers who play craps, it might suggest he is the bad influence just as was Minnie's 'handler'. So if it's not stated in Calloway's version what happened to the girl to put her on the long, white table, one might think of Minnie's 'handler', perhaps. So the girl is dead, he knows it, and is so 'gracious' to let her go and find that he was the best thing that happened to her, basically. Then he speaks of his own death, and what a production it should be. The gold coin and 'standing there' might just further suggest the desire to portray himself in death as having been well-off, that he died standing up, that he died on his feet, went out standing on his feet, as the saying might go, etc.

The traditional version makes more sense, as a lyric. Here the singer isn't the one who had been living with the girl. But he knew her, likely admired her. And he's the one to find her on the bed in the infirmary, already describing her as if she's dead, or the princess who could be awakened with a kiss. This was the version of McGuinn and as explained by 'Dr. H'. He's distraught and heads for a bar. There he finds the man who had been living with her. And he's telling people that she disappeared on him, and he doesn't know where she is. Ah, let her go, and no hard feeling, he says. Perhaps he really does know where she is. Or perhaps he beat her, threw her out badly injured, and really doesn't know that she made it to the infirmary or was given assistance. But as an abuser, the 'let her go' has another meaning - not that of goodwill, but spite and indifference.

Now if the traditional version continues with his own plans for an elaborate funeral, it suggests that death was the topic and that as with the other versions, this guy in the bar already knew that she was dead, or could well be. Others might say, it just means that he or someone said, she's dead to you. And then he says what he'd want when he himself dies. Perhaps in explaining her absence, he painted her as the bully, nagging and making demands on him, setting an ultimatum, perhaps even storming out. How she wound up at death's door, then, he couldn't explain.

The origin of the song is said to be found sometime and somewhere in Ireland or Scotland, centuries ago. But that song likely changed a bit to become the classic associated with New Orleans, St. James Infirmary.