Listen to a version with that melody: Peggy Seeger. Owens, Texas Folk Songs, 1950 (1976 ed.), 'Three Black Crows,' pp. Tunes heard in Texas approximated 'When Johnny Comes Marching Home.' Wm. These Texas versions also included the three verses mentioned above, in variant forms. Owens collected the song from both Whites and African-Americans in Texas, and said a version he found in the Carolinas had been learned in the 1880s.

The ballad has commonly been sung to the melody of 'When Johnny Comes Marching Home.' William A. It appears the 'Willie McGee McGaw' refrain was added in the late 1800s and was published that way as early as 1909. Although the situation was not amusing, 'Willie McGee McGaw' never failed to get a laugh.' Some of the US versions came from print sources and others were learned second hand from print sources, which makes most of the US 'traditional' versions suspect. A wide variety of college songbooks, starting with the Carmena Collegensia (Boston) in 1868, included a version and as Niles stated in his Ballad Book, 'This piece of nonsense was sung in my family for the purpose of creating humor, when I was a boy (c. The three published versions in the 1860s were all 'lined out'- spoken slowly by the lead and then sung by the group. This was a parody of the old church hymns that were 'lined out' in a similar fashion. In the US the three ravens become crows and the crows become minstrel stage performers in blackface.

[ Although US and Canadian versions lack the integrity of the original ballad, they make up for it in variety and style.

Ravens Deep by Jane Jordan