It’s definitely true that all of these songs except Old 97 originated outside of the U.S., but in adapting them, Neal and I did our best to use the Amercanized versions of them that descended through history and immigration to become part of the American cultural fabric. No doubt that that fabric is made of threads that stretch across the ocean, but we tried to focus on the forms the songs took here.

I read the first volume of the Child Ballads collection recently, which is mostly British but records a few American variants — for instance, for “The Demon Lover”, it gives the text of a couple of versions, mentions larger variations, and has part of an American one (“House Carpenter”) which is much the same but sets the action in America.