Then again, there are some good songs (folk and otherwise) about snakes.
As for being "stupid enough" to try to pick up a snake, I have to say I've done my share of that - so far with no results more dire than having a little garter snake piss all over my hand! (Pretty effective defense, that.)

But one time while swimming in the Sandy River near Portland, OR, I saw a darkish snake swimming by and reached out and caught it.   I don't thin we have water moccasins in this area, but I wasn't sure, and when the snake whipped around like it was contemplating letting me find out, I quickly released it.   LOL

Here's a snake folk song that MMario posted (in a thread of another title):
Shake A Snake

Then there's one that I think Belafonte did (?) about a woman who finds a poor snake nearly frozen in the winter and takes him home and feeds him and warms him by holding him to her breast, whereupon he bites her, and as she's dying she asks how he could do that after she'd been so kind to him, whereupon he replies (last line of song),

"Oh, shut up, silly woman!" said that serpent with a grin,
"You knew damned well I was a snake before you took me in!"

(I can't find it here at Mudcat, but I thought it had been posted somewhere.)

Seems even in folk music, the snakes get a bum rap.