I hadn't thought much about this song in years.I think the first time I heard it must have been mid 60's. I do remember my Grandfather singing this song (or something very much like it) He was born in Indian Territory (now Oklahoma) and moved to Texas,then New Mexico (1907) He had to do just about any kind of work to survive and I recall him talking about songs that the gandy-dancers on the railroad would sing to keep their work in rythm.I think the colored men he worked alongside on those endless rail lines,or in those Texas cottonfields would have found great sport in the notion that someone somewhere could decide that there must be an "official" or "authorized" or "pure" or "seminal" version of any of those songs.Those songs were tools, just like a gandy bar.They used them,changed them,sang new ones and never gave a thought where they had come from.