The Beginning of "Little girl" has a "little" from:
Maybe the most famous:
Maybe the "Original".....
I guess many people only know the Animals' version of it. My mother thinks they wrote the song.
The song has an interesting history. The now well known version was recorded by song collector Alan Lomax from Kentucky woman Georgia Turner in 1937:
https://lomaxky.omeka.net/items/show/518
Originally it was a dirty song. The Rising Sun was a whorehouse, people changed/obscured the text because it wasn't fit for singing on record or in the presence of strangers.
Here's a recording made by Ozark song collector Max Hunter where the original meaning is clear:
https://maxhunter.missouristate.edu/songinformation.aspx?ID=504
(this one's explicit, just saying)
The singer was obviously drunk. Many people knew dirty songs like this but most would deny knowing them sober.
I hope I didn't ruin anybody's enjoyment of the song with that. I'm just interested in reading up on songs' origins. I've been soaking up every bit of information on all kinds of folk songs for years...
Edit:
Here's a traditional, slightly gory version of Tiny Tim's "Little Girl in the Pines" called "Black Girl":
http://digitalcollections.uark.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/OzarkFolkSong/id/1703/rec/4
She's sleeping in the pines because her husband died in a train accident. A rather unsettling song.
Max Hunter also collected a version:
https://maxhunter.missouristate.edu/songinformation.aspx?ID=0617
Here the tune is again slightly reminiscent of The Rising Sun Blues.
This is fascinating stuff.