Sweet Betsy from Pike
Channel: Stephen Griffith
Date: 2020-05-13

Day 58 of the American Songbag Stay-at-Home Series  (folksongindex.com)

One of my favorite folk songs—ever. A three and a half minute novel, polished by the constant retelling.

Sandburg writes: "The ups and downs of covered wagon life, mixed with romance and ending in divorce, are told in one of the favorite songs of California in the 1850's.

Sweet Betsy From Pike has the stuff of a realistic novel. It is droll and don't-care, bleary leering, as and slippery and lackadaisical as some of the comic characters of Shakespeare, or as trifling as the two murderers who are asked, "How " came you here? and who answer, "On our legs." It was a good wagon song.

Miles of monotonous scenery would pass to the singing of it. Disappointed prospectors could share their own misery with Betsy and Ike. It was a good wagon song."