Ken Langsbury - of The Songwainers - says that it was his brother's idea to sing John Barleycorn to the tune of We Plough the Fields and Scatter.

The words of the hymn were originally German, Wir pflügen und wir streuen, written by poet Matthias Claudius, published in 1782 and translated into English by Jane Montgomery Campbell in 1861. They were set to music in 1800, attributed to Johann A. P. Schulz.