The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #46672   Message #693347
Posted By: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
18-Apr-02 - 10:10 PM
Thread Name: Sweet Betsy From Pike - refrain???
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Sweet Betsy From Pike
Well, you pull one oversize book off the shelf and it turns out to be the wrong one. It was Lomax in "The Folk Songs of North America" who did the "Hoodle dang" stuff. He also said that the "text never varies," but there are some verses that Stone never wrote.
Apologies to Sandburg for the mistake. He gave the chorus as
"The last line could be repeated, for a change, with the fol de rol words, 'Tooral lal looral lal, Tooral lal la loo.'" Sandburg, The American Songbag, pp. 108-109.
After the verse provided by Kendall, Lomax (The Folk Songs of North America) has the verse (Neither one in the DT):
Vance Randolph, in his "Unprintable Songs from the Ozarks," (not seen) reported two "slightly obscene" verses.
John A. Stone reached California in 1850, but never found gold. "He claimed to have sung all of his songs at various times and places and occasionally with the assistance of a group of men known as the Sierra Nevada Rangers. With encouragement from friends, he published his songs as "Put's Original California Songster" in 1855 which was followed by other "Put's" songsters that dealt with the mountains of California. "Sweet Betsy" appeared in the second edition of "Put's Golden Songster (1858) ..." Quoted from "The Whorehouse Bells Were Ringing" by Guy Logsdon, p. 215ff.
See thread 24592 for another (Mormon) version: Betsy
A very good thread devoted to Gold Miners Songs is 6228: Gold