Bill Staines (born February 6, 1947 in Medford, Massachusetts) is an American folk musician and singer-songwriter from New England, who writes and performs traditional sounding songs. Like Libba Cotten, composer of "Freight Train", he plays a standard guitar left handed.
It was printed in his book If I Were a Word, Then I'd Be A Song.
In this song, as in some of his other songs, he hums or plays parts of some verses - in this case the last lines of the third verse and the first lines of the fourth verse. Other songs by Bill Staines in this collection are:
"A Place in the Choir"
"Roseville Fair"
"Sweet Wyoming Home"