Meade, Spottswood and Meade give Kelly Harrell's "The Dying Hobo" as the first U.S. recording and Burnett & Rutherford's "Little Stream of Whiskey" as the second. Both were recorded in 1926.

These two are really quite different songs. They share a hobo dying, but beyond that differ in tune as well as in lyrics. The Harrell song is full of folk lyrics (like, "sewing her silks so fine", "there's more young men than George", "see that dove in yonders grove, flying from pine to pine, it's mourning for it's own true love just like I mourn for mine", etc.). The song focuses on the mourning of hte girlfriend in a distant town, but there is no mention of a partner or anyone else present at the death, and there is no focus on the tragedy of the death, just the tragedy of the girl's mourning over the death. The fact that he's a hobo seems rather irrelevant.

The Burnett and Rutherford tune (which contains most of the verses that Doc Watson and others later sang) is all about the dying hobo and his last words to his "partner hobo" about going to the place where he "will not have to work at all", and where "a little stream of whiskey is flowing from the rocks". Though he leaves word for his "girl in Danville, not to worry at all", that is the only mention of anyone remote from the death scene, and it is a mighty scant mention. This song has a few lyrics in common with Jimmie Rodgers' "Hobo Bill's Last Ride" (attributed to Waldo O'Neal), but the latter mentions nobody else present at the scene. "Little Stream" is also related to the "Big Rock Candy Mountain" family of songs, in which the hobo describes his paradise.

I have a hard time thinking of any of these songs as parodies of "Bingen on the Rhine", a lengthy poem written by Caroline Norton in the mid 19th century, in which a soldier dying in Algiers asks his friend to send word of his death back home. I am unaware of musical settings of this poem dating back to the early days of sound recordings.

However, the phrase "Bingen on the Rhine", is quoted in Uncle Dave Macon's "All-go Hungry Hash House". But that's not really surprising, because "Hungry Hash House" originated as a popular song and "Bingen On The Rhine" was a well known poem at the time. It seems to have been used as a sentimental recitation in music-hall reviews.