Hey, Kendall - on "Bill Grogan's Goat," you have:

He heaved a sigh as if in vain

Did you mean pain?
-Joe-

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Here's the Traditional Ballad Index entry on this song:

Bill Grogan's Goat

DESCRIPTION: Bill Grogan has a goat; "He loved that goat just like a kid." One day the goat, "Ate three red shirts from off the line." Bill angrily ties the goat to the railroad track. The goat "coughed up those shirts (and) flagged down the train."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1904 (sheet music, The Tale of a Shirt)
KEYWORDS: animal humorous train
FOUND IN: US(SE) Canada(Newf)
REFERENCES (7 citations):
Cohen-LSRail, pp. 288-295, "Papa's Billy Goat/Rosenthal's Goat" (3 texts plus some excerpts and a sheet music cover of "The Tale of a Shirt," 2 tunes)
BrownIII 514, "The Billy Goat" (1 short text)
Peacock, p. 65, "Joey Long's Goat" (1 text, 1 tune)
Spaeth-ReadWeep, pp. 140-141, "(The Goat)" (1 text, 1 tune)
Silber-FSWB, p. 404, "Bill Groggin's Goat" (1 text)
Pankake-PHCFSB, pp. 54-55, "Papa's Billy Goat" (1 text, 1 tune, with additional elements added)
DT, GOATSHRT*
Roud #4574
RECORDINGS:
Fiddlin' John Carson, "Papa's Billy Goat" (OKeh 4994, 1924; rec. 1923) (Okeh, unissued, 1927) (Bluebird B-5787, 1935; rec. 1934)
Uncle Dave Macon, "Papa's Billie Goat" (Vocalion 14848, 1924)
Joshua Osborne, "Joey Long's Goat" (on PeacockCDROM) [one verse only]
Riley Puckett, "Papa's Billy Goat" (Columbia, unissued, 1924)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Reuben and Rachel" (tune of some versions, including Fiddlin' John Carson's)
cf. "Paddy McGinty's Goat" (theme)
NOTES: Almost certainly based on a poem by Robert Service -- which may, however, have been based on a folk song or story. - PJS
The Service poem is "The Ballad of Casey's Billy-Goat," in which the goat is named Shamus; it ends
What power on earch could save them? Yet a golden inspiration
To god and goats alike may come, so in that brutish brain
A thought was born -- the ould red shael.... Then rearing with elation,
Like lightning Shamus threw it up -- and flagged and stopped the train.
Norm Cohen, however, makes no mention of this; he notes that the 1904 "Tale of a Shirt" (the earliest precisely dateable version) is very distinct from the common text, requiring recensional activity. The earliest traditional version seems to be Brown's, from 1913. Cohen also notes a link to a Will Hays song, "O'Grady's Goat," published by 1890.
It sounds to me as if the thing goes back into the mists of time, with periodic performers grabbing some traditional fragment and expanding it into a full-blown song.
Carson's version, incidentally, has a final verse in which the singer marries a widow and the widow's daughter marries the singer's father. It's not "I'm My Own Grandpa" -- but it's very possibly an inspiration for that song. - RBW
Last updated in version 4.2
File: SRW141

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