First published in “The Journal of American Folklore,” collected by E.C. Perrow.
The story of this song is quite complicated. Musically, it is inspired by the Scottish air Robaidh Dona Gorach while its lyrics are freely adaptated from the civil war song The Rebel Soldier. In both cases, the resemblances are too hazy to call it a “cover”.
Moreover, the song is vaguely related to The Cuckoo . Again, defying it “a cover” would be excessive.
Furthermore, this song has dozens of titles, depending on its “function”: for instance, the instrumental, dance version was mostly performed under the name of “Drunken Hiccups”, “Jack of Diamonds” had to do with gambling (and nothing to do with the Blind Lemon Jefferson blues song with the same name), “Rye Whiskey” was the favorite title among moonshiners and so on.
