The Three Crows- Carmena Collegensia; Boston 1868
This is one of the ealirest printings in the US and is similar or nearly identical to the text of the verses from some Appalachian versions like the one Sharp collected from Jane Gentry (NC) in 1917. It's found in Christy's New Songster and Black Joker published in 1863. The American College Songster: (Yale) 1876 has the same version as the Carmena Collegensia.
"Lining out" songs, parodies the custom found in the singing of hymns found many early churches. Frank Brower's Black Diamond Songster and Ebony Jester accurately shows the "deaconed" text:
SPOKEN (slowly and precisely).
There were three crows sat on a tree,
And they were black as black could be.
Brothers, sing!
QUARTETTE
There were three crows sat on a tree,
And they were black as black could be.
Below, Carmena Collegensia suggests, "It is the custom for someone to "line" each stanza before it is sung."
The Three Crows- Carmena Collegensia; Boston 1868
1. There was three crows sat on a tree
And they were as black as crows could be.
2. Said one old crow unto his mate:
What will we do for grub to eat?
3. There is a dead horse on yonder plain,
Whose by some cruel butcher's slain.
4 We'll perch upon his back-bone,
And pick his eyes out one by one.