Just an observation or two about this "refreshed" song; how often in "folksongs" do you encounter such perfect grammar as "if it weren't..." (as distinct from the more common formation in demotic speech, "if it wasn't..."). And, although the impression given is that the singer/narrator is living out in the bayou - isn't the cypress native to the Mediterranean, and transplanted as an ornamental exotic elsewhere? Poetic licence, I suppose, together with a lot of reminiscences of other songs. A song sometimes performed by senior Irish politicians, while "relaxed".