Also known as "Jimmy Crack Corn". Roud number 1274. It is an American song that first became popular during the rise of blackface minstrelsy in the 1840s through performances by the "Virginia Minstrels". It regained currency as a folk song in the 1940s at the beginning of the American folk music revival and has since become a popular children's song. The term "Blue Tail Fly" likely refers to "tabanus atratus," a black horsefly with a blue sheen on the abdomen.