The song I'm Gwine Ober de Mountain (I'm Going over the Mountain) is credited to Daniel Emmett, a prominent blackface minstrel songwriter and performer. Like many popular songs, it seems to have found its way into use during dock- and ship-work. The rhyming couplets have been separated to allow for the typical shanty call-and-response. Many more verses can be found for this song, and additional verses would be easily improvised, making the song suitable for sustained work at a capstan or windlass.