St. James Infirmary Blues - The Song

The Song

The song involves a man telling the singer/narrator, at a bar, how he went down to St. James Infirmary (hospital) and tragically found his girl (the so-called "baby") dead.

Like most such folksongs, there is much variation in the lyrics from one version to another. This is the first stanza as sung by Louis Armstrong:

I went down to St. James Infirmary,

Saw my baby there,

Stretched out on a long white table,

So cold, so sweet, so fair.

Let her go, let her go, God bless her,

Wherever she may be,

She can look this wide world over,

But she'll never find a sweet man like me.