Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2015 March 21

= March 21 =

Song by Billy Edd Wheeler called Desert Pete
Is the song based on fact or entirely fiction?
 * The song is best known from its inclusion on the 1963 album Sunny Side! by The Kingston Trio. Lyrics are available via a Google search, as are many sermons and religious tracts based on the song (here, for example).  It doesn't appear to have any factual basis - any area where the water table is high enough to be reached by a suction pump (*) is unlikely to be a desert, and a small can of water left out in the desert would evaporate in a matter of hours.  Suction pumps do require priming, though, so the main metaphor of the song is accurate. Tevildo (talk) 10:24, 21 March 2015 (UTC)
 * (*) NOTE: Our (limited) coverage of the suction pump is at piston pump, although "suction pump" redirects to vacuum pump.  Might need tidying up. Tevildo (talk) 10:24, 21 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Actually it wasn't a can it was a bottle, presumably with a cap on it. The song itself, to my ears, is not about deserts and pumps, it's a parable about consideration for others. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 12:00, 21 March 2015 (UTC)