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Little Betty Ann/Betty Anne/Fly Around my Pretty Little Miss
Traditional Old-Time Breakdown and Song; North Carolina, US;
ARTIST: Sung by Inez Chandler at her home in Marshall, Madison County, NC. From "Far in the Mountains” website. (Roud 5720);
Listen: "Little Betty Ann" Mike Seeger See: Little Betty Ann for Mike's lyrics.
CATEGORY: Fiddle and Instrumental Tunes; DATE: 1916
RECORDING INFO: Seeger, Mike. Music From the True Vine, Mercury SRMI-627, LP (1972), cut# 10; Sovine, Melanie. Appalachian Folk Music, Sovine WHA-0142LP, LP (197?), cut#A.01; Ashby, John; and the Free State Ramblers. Fiddling by the Hearth, County 773, LP (1979), cut# 12; Ashby, John. Devil's Box, Devil's Box DB, Ser (196?), 18/4, p49; Ashlock, Jesse. Texas Sand; Anthology of Western Swing, Rambler 101, LP (198?), cut# 13; Chapman, Owen "Snake". Fiddle Ditty, June Appal JA 0061C, Cas (1990), cut# 8;
OTHER NAMES: “Betty Ann” "Fly Around my Pretty Little Miss," ‘Western Country,” "Polly Ann." “Blue-Eyed Girl,” "Susannah Gal," "Blue Eyed Miss," “Fly Around My Pretty Little Pink”
RELATED TO: "Shady Grove," “Liza Jane” “Weevily Wheat" (floating lyrics); "Coffee Grows (Four in the Middle)" (floating lyrics); "Up and Down the Railroad Track" (floating lyrics); "Missus in the Big House" (meter). “Say, Darling, Say;” “Where Are You Going;” “Washing Mama's Dishes;” “Black Jack Davy” (Tune); “Coffee Grows on White Oak Trees,”
SOURCES: From English Folk Songs From the Southern Appalachians, Sharp, MIT Press, Sof (1968), p 78 (Betty Ann); From “Far in the Mountains” web-site;
NOTES: "Betty Anne" is one of the earliest Appalachian versions of "Fly Around my Pretty Little Miss." Cecil Sharp collected one set of Little Betty Ann from Ellie Johnson of Hot Springs, Madison County, NC, in 1916. The 1916 date precedes Samantha Bumgarner's 1924 recording entitled "Fly Around my Pretty Little Miss," by eight years. There are many floater fiddle tune lyrics with "Shady Grove," "Fly Around my Pretty Little Miss," and "Polly Ann" in this fiddle-tune family.
“As Inez explained to me, the song really comprises a collection of 'floating' verses which are often used as mnemonics for fiddle-tunes. Inez Chandler's final verse is more often associated with the song Liza Jane.” (Mike Yeats)
'Til I went down to my little Betty Ann's
And I hadn't been there before.
She fed me out of the little pig trough
And I'll go there no more.
Reel and rock my little Betty Ann,
Reel and rock I say.
Reel and rock my little Betty Ann,
For love I'm going away.
Sixteen years a cannonball,
It's I've been around this line.
Sweethearts is plenty, little love,
But a good wife's hard to find.
Went up on the mountain top,
I give my horn a blow.
Yonder come my pretty little girl,
Yonder come my beau.
The hardest work I ever done
Was working in the rain.
Easiest thing I ever done
Was loving Liza Jane.
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