You can also find out more than you'd probably like by contacting the Kansas Historical Society. The lyrics were published in the 1880s in a newspaper in Dighton County, KS. The lyrics are usually sung to the tune of the Irish Washerwoman. If anyone has ever been to Lane County KS, you can sympathize with his sentiments. What the author was talking about in the song was the hardship of farming during an era of low farm prices,and bad weather. There was nothing but the sod to use for building material.