"Hannah" was the name workers on Texas prison farms gave the sun. This song was widely known on prison farms throughout the south. According to Bruce Jackson's Wake Up Dead Man there are at least ten different recording of different versions of the songs in various archives. Through recordings by Alan and John Lomax this song made its way into folk music performance by Leadbelly, Lightning Hopkins and Pete Seeger. "Go Down Ol' Hannah" shares some verses with "Ain't No Mo' Cane on de Brazos". It was printed in Alan Lomax's The Folk Songs of North America (1960), John and Alan Lomax's Our Singing Country (1941), B. A. Botkin's A Treasury of Southern Folklore (1949) and Bruce Jackson's Wake Up Dead Man: Afro-American Worksongs from Texas Prisons (1972). It is included in the Roud Folk Song Index as #6710. It was commercially recorded by Pete Seeger and Koerner, Ray & Glover.