Hi Guys/Gals of The Mudcat Cafe,

My name is Taylor Brown and I'm a fiction writer in North Carolina. My first novel, FALLEN LAND, is coming out from St. Martin's Press in Winter 2016.

The novel is actually loosely inspired by the song "When First Unto This Country", which I'm sure most of you know. I'd like to use the first two lines as the epigraph for the book:

When first unto this country,
A stranger I came...

Or perhaps one of the other verses.

However, I'm having trouble determining whether the song is in the public domain or not. I know the Lomax brothers first recorded the Gant family singing it in Austin in 1934. I've contacted Todd Harvey, the Lomax Collection curator at the Library of Congress but haven't heard anything back so far.

I know these first two lines are also used in at least two other traditional ballads, so I can't imagine they are subject to copyright, but the liability is on me as the author if I'm wrong. My publisher would prefer that the song be in the PD before signing off on its use as an epigraph. On all of the albums I've seen, the song attribution is "Traditional." I'm not sure how this relates to public domain.

I'm hoping you guys could maybe point me in the right direction. How to confirm whether the song is PD or not? Whom I should contact? I feel like I need something substantive to set myself and my publisher at ease. The last thing I'd like is some kind of copyright troubles impacting my first novel! :)

Thanks so much, y'all!