Inspired lyrically by the traditional Cossack folk song "Koloda-Duda", Seeger borrowed an Irish melody for the music,[1] and published the first three verses in Sing Out!

Seeger found inspiration for the song in October 1955 while he was on a plane bound for a concert at Oberlin College, one of the few venues which would hire him during the McCarthy era.

"[7] These lines were taken from the traditional Cossack folk-song "Koloda-Duda" (Ukrainian: Колода-дуда), referenced in the Mikhail Sholokhov novel And Quiet Flows the Don (1934), which Seeger had read "at least a year or two before".

He recorded a version with three verses on The Rainbow Quest album (Folkways LP FA 2454) released in July 1960.

[10] The song appeared on the compilation album Pete Seeger's Greatest Hits (1967) released by Columbia Records as CS 9416.