hi from later with a couple more cents. When I was 16 in 1966 and just learning guitar my folks shipped me to a summer program in France to get rid of me for 6 weeks. I met a cute 17 year old girl who was way better than me (so being as I was both younger and crummier she wasn't 'interested' in me, but I badgered her into showing me some chords to practice: Rider! She told me she learned the song from her guitar teacher, "An old beatnik living in Palo Alto. There's a couple of older kids that are his students, too. They are in a band that plays at this pizza place......" OK, so that's that.

Years later, understanding that the lyrics come from C.C. Rider, and various other songs, all shifting sands here; I came across a 1967 paperback reprint of Lomax' book (foreward by Pete Seeger) which gave a verse as:

I wish I was a catfish swimmin' in the deep blue sea
I wish I was a catfish swimmin'in the deep blue sea
That'd stop all them women from fussin' over me!

It didn't make any sense, but I sang it that way. Now, just last year I was waiting (for nothing as it turned out) in front of Union Station in Los Angeles and, among other things, this old black guy in a wheel-chair saw my guitar, caught my eye with a nice grin and powered on over to share a cigarette. We traded riffs on the guitar. I played Rider. When we got to the above verse, he very sharply articulated the 'correct' lyric: "That'd stop all them women from 'f--kin' over me! Yeah, well. Guess so.