Skip to main content

The Saint James Infirmary Blues

This history of the St. James Infirmary song is an interesting one. While hanging around a folk music bar in Scotland, I found it interesting that there of all places, someone to whom I showed the early lyrics for the song was able to identify that St. James Infirmary has a common musical ancestry to The Streets of Laredo.


Something in the lyrics that is lost on many modern listeners is the implication that the "baby" of the St. James singer, who is dead at the infirmary, has died of syphilis or some other venereal disease. This is the reasoning behind the "chilling" sense that Sarah Vowell complained of where the narrator seems more concerned with his own funeral arrangements than longing to rejoin his dead lover -- thing is, he already KNOWS that he's next in line, hence the hurry toward "impressing his buddies with a big dumb coin". She's dead, and she gave him the same stuff that did her in. 

The original St. James' Hospital song includes the lines --

"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."

-- Which explain much of the narrator's mindset.

There is an interesting article at Best of New Orleans trying to track the history of the tune, which is not so similar to the older Streets of Laredo melody. But in fact, a simple adaption into a minor key and change to a "blues beat" starts giving the hints of what happened to arrive at the known modern St. James Infirmary melody.

Popular posts from this blog

13 Herb Bath for Curse Removal

13 Herb Bath for curse removal can be made from from any 13 uncrossing and purification herbs. For example, if I needed to fix a batch of 13 herb bath right now based on what I've got in the house, I could mix bay leaves, rue, mint, rosemary, wood betony, sage, verbena, angelica root, white rose petals, lemongrass, lemon peel, agrimony and arnica, and it would suffice well. Other herbs like hyssop, pine needles, juniper leaves, boldo, eucalyptus leaves, mullein, basil, lavender, or marshmallow leaves would be good to use too. By no means complete, here is a list of just a few herbs said to remove a curse or jinx that you can use to make your own 13 Herbs bath: Agrimony Alkanet Angelica Arnica Basil Bay leaves Black Pepper Blessed Thistle Boldo Cayenne Pepper Chives Eucalyptus Garlic Hyssop John the Conqueror Juniper Lavender Lemon Lemongrass Lime Marshmallow leaves Mint Mullein Onion Pine Rosemary Rue Sage Sandalwood Verbena White Rose Petals ...

Paper-in-Shoe Spells

A popular and very traditional hoodoo spell, often used for any situation where you need to control someone with magic , is the namepaper-in-shoe spell. It's very easy: you write the target's name 3, 7, or 9 times on a paper (depending on intent and who's giving instruction) then fold it up, sometimes after dressing it with oils or powders, then put it in your shoe. This "keeps the person underfoot" or "stomps out the trouble" or "puts pressure on them" or any other number of metaphors. I have had this work several times over the years. In one instance, I was working for a very unpleasant boss, on a short-term job. It was the last day, and I only had about 3 hours of work left on the project; and I wanted him to up my pay for the day since it almost wasn't worth the trip across town for the amount he was paying me, for only 3 hours. He was very reluctant. So I wrote his name 3 times on a 5-dollar bill he'd given me, and dusted it...

Spiritual Use of Turpentine in Hoodoo and Witchcraft

  I have posted in the past about the use of giving one's bedding a spiritual cleansing from time to time.  I recently was laundering my pillows in the same load of laundry as some turpentine-soaked rags, with the result that the pillows emerged from the wash reeking of turpentine.  From a magical perspective, this may not be a bad thing. Turpentine is used in old-time hoodoo rituals for purposes such as uncrossing, protection and sometimes as a feed for mojo bags. Its solvent powers and strong odor do indeed suggest a powerful spiritual cleansing agent, and it is still used in some modern day cleaning products on a purely practical level for these same reasons.  Old time medicines sometimes included turpentine as a thing to drink, in small doses. A book from the 1850s, The Domestic Medicine Chest , recommends giving it to children in a dose of one teaspoon for killing tapeworm. Relatedly, in old time hoodoo cures for "live things" turpentine might be made into a tea...

Mother Bombie's Witch's Bottle for Curse Removal and Spell Reversing

The witch bottle is a very old spell device. Its purpose is to draw in and trap harmful intentions directed at its owner. Folk magic contends that the witch bottle protects against evil spirits and magical attack, and counteracts spells cast by witches. Mother Bombie's Book of Witchcraft contains the following recipe for constructing a witch's bottle: To Make the Witch’s Bottle Which shall cure of all sorceries done against ye You must have a bottle which sealeth with a cork or wooden plug, in which you shall place the following: A quart of your own water shall be taken and boiled with a paring from each toenail, and with some of your hair, for fire will burn away all evils, and as the water reduces so shall your trouble. Put thereto sulfur, XII nails made from iron, and VIII pins of brass. Add also a heart that has been shaped and cut from from leather or cloth, which you shall pierce with one more nail or pin, for that is the heart of the evil doer who m...

The Intranquil Spirit

(EDIT: Up to date information about the Intranquil Sprit can be found in my book  The Intranquil Spirit , available on Amazon.  This post has some incomplete information which is clarified in the book.) The Intranquility spell is, unfortunately, the first resort of many a rejected lover. In some ways it makes sense -- the more unhappy and forlorn one is about a breakup, the better this idea of making the other partner feel just as much so starts to sound. Unfortunately, this spell is often not well suited to a case. The purpose of the standard Intranquility spell is to have the person be tormented by the spirit until they make contact with you, or whomever the spell is being cast for. This means that if a person is already in good contact with their ex OR if they're one of those people who cannot restrain themselves from initiating contact, then this already is probably not the right spell for that case. If you've had an Intranquility spell cast and you make contac...