Lennon Lied?

Robert Fusillo responded to yesterday’s post. He recalls that the song is older. I’m troubled by the same recollection – but Lennon claimed it in the famous John-Yoko Playboy interview in 1981 (though the quote below is from here):

I wrote it during that time [the lost weekend ]. That’s how I felt. It exactly expresses the whole period. For some reason, I always imagined Sinatra singing that one. I don't know why. It’s kind of a Sinatra-esque song, really. He would do a perfect job with it. Are you listening, Frank ? You need a song that isn’t a piece of nothing. Here’s the one for you, the horn arrangement and everything’s made for you. But don’t ask me to produce it.

Robert wrote back: “Jimmy Cox, 1922. Not the Jimmy Cox who wrote some Broadway stuff a decade ago. The latter did a tribute to Eric Clapton with the song in it, so it might be a relative.” His source is here.

While he was doing that, I searched through my LPs and found the album with the Judy Henske cover: Dave Guard and the Whiskeyhill Singers (Capitol T/ST-1728). Here’s the album note:

NOBODY KNOWS YOU WHEN YOU’RE DOWN AND OUT – Is a fine old Bessie Smith blues, written by Jimmy Cox. Buckwheat [David Wheat] plays the twelve-stringed guitar, Cyrus [Cyrus Faryar] the Spanish guitar, and Judy [Judy Henske] takes the spotlight as a soloist this time. Hi-fi fans will be interested to note that the meter registers 15 db in the end there.

I apologize for the misinformation below – I should have done more homework. So...what’s John Lennon talking about?