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March 21[edit]

Song by Billy Edd Wheeler called Desert Pete[edit]

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)[reply]

(*) 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)[reply]

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)[reply]