<P> "Cotton - Eyed Joe" (also known as "Cotton - Eye Joe") is a traditional American country folk song popular at various times throughout the United States and Canada, although today it is most commonly associated with the American South . In the Roud index of folksongs it is No. 942 . </P> <P> "Cotton - Eyed Joe" has inspired both a partner dance and more than one line dance that is often danced at country dance venues in the U.S. and around the world . The 1980 film Urban Cowboy sparked a renewed interest in the dance . In 1985, The Moody Brothers' version of the song received a Grammy Award nomination for "Best Country Instrumental Performance". Irish group The Chieftains received a Grammy nomination for "Best Country Vocal Collaboration" for their version of the song with lead vocals by Ricky Skaggs on their 1992 album, Another Country . In 1994, a version of the song recorded by the Swedish band Rednex as "Cotton Eye Joe" became popular worldwide . </P> <P> The origins of this song are unclear, although it pre-dates the 1861--1865 American Civil War . American folklorist Dorothy Scarborough (1878--1935) noted in her 1925 book On the Trail of Negro Folk - songs, that several people remember hearing the song before the war . Scarborough's account of the song came from her sister, Mrs. George Scarborough, who learned the song from "the Negroes on a plantation in Texas, and other parts from a man in Louisiana ." The man in Louisiana knew the song from his earliest childhood and heard slaves singing it on plantations . Both the dance and the song had many variants . The first printed one dates from 1882 . American publishing house Harper and Brothers published a version in 1882, heard by author Louise Clarke Pyrnelle (born 1850) on the Alabama plantation of her father when she was a child, that was later republished in 1910: </P> <P> "Cotton - eyed Joe, Cotton - eyed Joe, </P>

When was the song cotton eyed joe written