Burnett may have tailored a pre-existing song to fit his blindness, and based his melody on "Wandering Boy", but according to hymnologist John Garst, no song with this or similar title had tune that can be identified with "Constant Sorrow".
Burnett may have tailored a pre-existing song to fit his blindness; in a later interview by Charles Wolfe in 1975, Burnett said he thought he based the melody on an old Baptist hymn he remembered as "Wandering Boy". However, according to hymnologist John Garst, no song with this or similar title had tune that can be identified with "Constant Sorrow".