ST. JAMES INFIRMARY
St. James Infirmary Blues is an American jazz song of uncertain origin. Louis Armstrong made the song famous in his influential 1928 recording on which Don Redman was credited as composer; later releases gave the name of Joe Primrose, a pseudonym of Irving Mills. The melody is 8 bars long, unlike songs in the classic blues genre, where there are 12 bars. (More from Wikipedia)
If I had to pick out my favorite song on Wild Love, it would be “Pin Point Eyes”; the couplet “She looked into my pin point eyes / and she cried” is hard to top in the Stooges oeuvre. It sure would have been nice to hear this one on Open Up and Bleed!, but maybe it was just too unfinished. Greg Shaw speaks of this song in the liner notes: “Never before released in the U.S., ‘Pin Point Eyes’ might well have evolved out of a jam on ‘St. James Infirmary’, until Iggy grafted his own graphic addiction story over it. Some great crazed piano on this one from Bob Sheff. Gotta love the lazy mood in which Iggy starts off urging them all to join in, then to take their solo parts. It’s almost the kind of party that Dylan threw on ‘Rainy Day Women’, set in perhaps-ironic contrast to the really harrowing story he’s telling. (Did he really say he traded his girl for a bag of snow?).”
(December 2017)
