How very many songs have this same tune...

a Georgia Sea Island version of "Tell Old Bill"

"The Crawdad Song"

"Mama Don't Allow No Singin' Round Here"

some versions of "Frog Went a-Courting"

Woody Guthrie and the Almanac Singers song "Pittsburg Town Is A Smoky Old Town"

(I used to do 'em all in a sing along medley for young kids & in school shows to show 'em what the oral tradition process was all about---how it worked on altering the songs. As the last song in the medley I'd tell 'em we were going to create our own folksong right here and now. I'd take lines from each of the previously sung songs and it would come out as:

Tell old bill when he gets home, this morning,
That frog went a courtin' and he did ride, unh huh,
So you get a line and I'll get a pole,
'Cause we don't care what mama don't 'low
In Pittsburg,
Lord God, in Pittsburg.

It always was fun to do.)

Art Thieme