The song was first recorded on the "Ramblin Boy" Album and only contained three verses:

1) It's a lesson too late for the learning
2) You've got reasons a-plenty for going
3) As I lie in my bed in the morning

Joe's transcription above is as he sang it on that album. I am now on my third copy of the album. The first one I wore out (literally), the second one my brother borrowed and took it to sea with him and he either lost it or it was stolen (I think the latter, but it was many years ago). I found my present copy relatively recently released as a CD together with "Ain't that news". Still one of my favourite albums after all these years.

I believe the "As we walk, my thoughts are a-tumbling" verse was written later. I did once see something about the addition of the fourth verse but I can't remember what it was.

When I last went to see him a couple of tours back, he sang a parody which he had heard on an earlier tour over here.

I met this girl in a folk club
Like you do, Like you do
I bought her a drink and we chatted
Wouldn't you, wouldn't you?

And after the show she took me back to her flat
As she said we were two of a kind
And she played me every record Tom Paxton ever made
And that was the last thing on my mind!

He also told a story about his daughter. When she was at St Andrews University someone sang the song at the University folk club one night. She told the singer afterwards that her father had written it and the singer insisted that it was traditional Scottish. When she told him who her father was, his response was something like "Hmmm! Well maybe he did"