According to some early collectors, this shanty likely originated in the early post-Napoleonic era. These attributions appear to be based around the content of the song. Gibb Schreffler and others have instead found an origin in the blackface minstrel song Jim Along Josey, likely published by Edward Harper in 1838.

The only pull was on the word Joe, which was shouted or grunted, not sung. Often the names Josey or Rosey were sung.

Aver, in Sharp's version, is Havre.

According to James Madison Carpenter's notes, many sailors listed this as their favorite shanty. Earlier versions had a major key and later versions had a minor key.

In The Making of a Sailor, Harlow's version ends with a rather scandalous verse:

Oh once in my life I married a wife and damn her, she was lazy,
And wouldn't stay at home of nights which damn near set me crazy.

She stayed out all night, Oh hell! what a sight, and where do you think I found her?
Behind the pump, the story goes, with forty men around her.