Songs proposed it has links to include "Natchez Under the Hill", "The Old Bog Hole", "The Rose Tree", "Sugar in the Gourd", "The Black Eagle", "Glasgow Hornpipe", "Haymaker's Dance", "The Post Office", "Old Mother Oxford", "Kinnegad Slasher" and others.

[5][6] Eloise Hubbard Linscott believes the first part of the song is a contrafactum of the ballad "My Grandmother Lived on Yonder Little Green", published in 1857 by Horace Waters, which is in turn said to be a contrafactum of the Irish/Scottish/English ballad "The Old Rose Tree" published by at least 1795 in Great Britain.

Oh I jumped in the seat and I gave a little yell The horses ran away, broke the wagon all to hell Sugar in the gourd and honey in the horn I never been so happy since the day I was born."

In 1942, a soundie titled, "Turkey in the Straw" was created by Freddie Fisher and The Schnickelfritz Band (directed by Sam Coslow and produced by Josef Berne).

Roll 'em, twist 'em up a high tuc-ka-haw, Hittin' up a tune called "Turkey in the Straw".

[11] According to Stuart Flexner, "coon" was short for "raccoon" and by 1832 meant a frontier rustic and by 1840 also a Whig who had adopted coonskin cap as a symbol of white rural people.

Another suggested derivation of the word meaning a black person is barracoon, an enclosure for slaves in transit that was increasingly used in the years before American Civil War.

[10] However, on the stage, "coon" could have been used much earlier as a black character was named Raccoon in a 1767 colonial comic opera.

Dixon, and Bob Farrell and George Nicholls had separately claimed to have written the song, and the dispute has not been not resolved.

[17] Both Birch's and Dixon's versions keep the same chorus and the first four stanzas: (3×) O ole Zip Coon he is a larned skoler, Sings posum up a gum tree an coony in a holler.

(3×) Posum up a gum tree, coonny on a stump, Den over dubble trubble, Zip coon will jump.

I went down to Sandy Hollar t other arternoon And the first man I chanced to meet war ole Zip Coon; Ole Zip Coon he is a natty scholar, For he plays upon de Banjo "Cooney in de hollar".

[18] Another version of "Old Zip Coon" with new self-referencing lyrics by David K. Stevens (1860–1946) was published in the Boy Scout Song Book (1920).

[25] The music for it was based upon "Turkey in the Straw" and performed with Browne singing baritone whilst playing a banjo with orchestral accompaniment.

[26] A contemporary review in July 1916 called it: "... a treat to tickle the musical palates of those who love to listen to the old-time slave-day river songs".

[27] The song used racist stereotypes in it with Browne describing watermelons as "colored man's ice-cream".

[29] In 2014, Dr. Theodore R. Johnson asserted that the jingle used by many ice cream trucks in the United States was based upon this song.

[31] Nevertheless, because of the association, a number of American ice cream truck companies ceased to use the "Turkey in the Straw" melody for their jingles.