“Sweet Betsy from Pike” is an American ballad about the trials of a pioneer named Betsy and her lover Ike who migrate from Pike County (probably Pike County, Missouri) to California. This Gold Rush-era song, with lyrics written by John A. Stone before 1858, was collected and published in Carl Sandburg’s 1927 American Songbag. It was recorded by Burl Ives on February 11, 1941 for his debut album Okeh Presents the Wayfaring Stranger. The melody is to the tune of the Irish song “Master McGrath,” which made its way to America after the Great Famine of Ireland. It is also that of the ballad “Villikins and his Dinah”. Members of the Western Writers of America chose it as one of the Top 100 Western songs of all time. The terms “Betsy” and “Old Betsy” were common frontier nicknames for rifles. In the 1980s, poet and scholar John Ciardi theorized that the song was originally a comic tribute to a rifle, portraying it as a pioneer’s trusty but fiery companion. He suggested that amended versions sung by countless people had eventually turned it into a song about a real woman
Songs with Banjo from Harold Hagler
