So very, very many times when I'm looking for information about a folk song (or any other kind of song) google sends me here, and here I am again! I remember the Psychology Today article, too. The author theorized the taunt song as a kind of universal song, the first song, hard wired into our brains. He called it "The Ur-Song" (a google search lead me to two websites, one of which seemed to understand the concept: http://criticalnoise.blogspot.com/2002/02/ur-song.html and one did not: www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,953778,00.html. I started thinking about this because I was chatting with a Russian friend, and she mentioned she had picniced on the Volga. I said something about The Volga Boatmen (the opening melody is a very simple version of this tune - G - E - B - E) she was unfamiliar with the song - she's young and listens to Beyonce and Shakira! As we chatted, I started realizing I had the opportunity to test the idea of the unversality of the tune, and I sent her links to some examples. She was unfamiliar with it.