Hi, all,

Thanks for the tidbits. I'm trying to verify that the song is in the public domain - hence my quest for its origins.

Aside from PDInfo, are there other sites that have catalogs of songs in the PD that I might check?

As I've seen many songs listed as PD that were not actually in the PD, how is anyone to know when it is safe to declare "PD" for a song for which you cannot find the origin, and it is at least 70 years old? (That doesn't automatically qualify any song, generally). Just because no one found the source--is that enough to go on? (Frankly, the songs listed as PD that are not would have been easily identified had the list creator done any simple research at all, so that hardly seems likely to be enough).

@Tim Radford, I understand it doesn't warrant much of your attention, but I'm curating/publishing a list of "common" songs that are safely in the PD, so it does warrant my getting it right.

@Guest who suggested it was rooted in "Shortenin' Bread"--can you explain? I'm not hearing a connection with the melody.

Thanks for any more insight.