 These lines were taken from the traditional Cossack folk song "Koloda-Duda", referenced in the Mikhail Sholokhov novel "And Quiet Flows the Don" (1934), which Seeger had read "at least a year or two before".In a 2013 interview, Seeger explained that he borrowed the melody from an Irish lumberjack song with the words 'Johnson says he'll load more hay.