Story telling in music

I was updating my iTunes last week and one of the songs in my collection is an old recording by Marty Robbins called The Streets of Laredo.

It's about a young cowboy that's met with an untimely end and the singer, Robbins in this case, has come across the young cowboy wrapped in white linen.

I went downstairs and was singing away in the kitchen when my wife heard me and commented on how I had morphed the song into an old Irish folk song.

I stopped singing.

I forgot about it until tonight when I was back at the computer organising my iTunes library and saw the Marty Robbins recording again. I had a listen. It was exactly as I was singing it.

I was confused.

I went to the web (not the internet I add.. more on that later) and searched for the lyrics of the Streets of Laredo. Then I did a search for the Irish folk song by the phrase "beat the drum slowly".

Sure enough the two songs are remarkably similar.

Check it out. First the chorus from The Streets of Laredo:

Oh, beat the drum slowly, and play the fife lowly
And play the dead march as you carry me along
Take me to the green valley and lay the earth o'er me
For I'm a poor cowboy and I know I've done wrong.

Now the chorus from The Green Fields of France (the Irish Folk song)

Did they beat the drum slowly did they play the fife lowly
Did they sound the death march as they lowered you down
Did the band play the last post and chorus
Did the pipes play the flowers of the forest

The first 2 lines are remarkably similar.

So the real question is which one came first? I'm guessing the Irish folk song pre-dates the Streets of Laredo but I might be wrong.

I've come across examples before where tunes from folk music have been borrowed and rearranged for contemporary recordings (Belfast Child recorded by Simple Minds and Words recorded by The Christians being two obvious examples) but I've never come across anything where lyrics are common (or almost common) between two records.

Tell me please if this is in fact common.

To play it safe in future I will only sing the first 2 lines of the chorus and then whistle the rest. The tune to the chorus is obviously similar too.