Connelly, cited above by the late Frank Taplin (long a contributor of well-informed posts to Mudcat), waxed astonishingly poetic in his appreciation of "Joe Bowers" and its tune. Here is part of what he had to say. It is an extreme example of a kind of fanciful, ultra-romantic commentary on folklore that one occasionally met with a century ago:

   "If it were possible to trace the strains to which the simple ballad of Joe Bowers is set, we might find that they were chanted by moving hordes of barbarians riding across the steppes of Asia bent on bloody conquest. Or we might find that they were sung by those ancient Argonauts in their search for the Golden Fleece. Or the Huns or Scythians, Tartars or Arabians, Goths or Vandals, Franks or Gauls, Moors or Spaniards may have marched arid fought to their inspiring melody. They may have originated on the Euphrates, on the Indus or the Ganges, on the Tiber, the Danube or the Neva, on the Rhine, the Thames, the Shannon, or the Spey. Certain it is that our stroller did not make them,nor did he know where he got them. That they are hoary with antiquity we may safely conclude. That they have flowed through the human heart a living stream from time immemorial there can be little doubt. And they have been recovered by a new people to be carried about the world, and so, can never die.

"Joe Bowers is more than the true type of the Missouri Argonaut. He is the hero of the final era of the migration of the human race. He will ever remain such....."

In fact, the melody resembles that of American versions of "The Lily of the West" and was used later for "I'm a Good Old Rebel."