In the Pines

The song grew from two older ones, "In the Pines" and "The Longest Train," both of unknown authorship and both going back to at least the 1870s, in the mountains where Tennessee, Kentucky, North Carolina and Georgia meet. Lines about "Joe Brown's coal mine" may point to Joseph E. Brown, the Georgia governor who leased convicts to work coal mines in that decade.

Norm Cohen found that most versions mix three pieces: the chorus about the pines, a verse about the longest train and a verse about a man killed on the line. Bill Monroe and Lead Belly both recorded it in the 1940s, and Nirvana's 1993 version, "Where Did You Sleep Last Night?", was based on Lead Belly's.