The most collected and widely sung English song in history is a grim tale about a tavern insult, a cold rejection at a deathbed, and a double funeral where a rose and a briar twine into a true lovers' knot. This episode asks why Barbara Allen outlasted anthems, hymns, and lullabies, starting with the folklorists' view that its stripped-down plot needed none of the milk-white steeds and magic of other ballads.

We begin with Samuel Pepys hearing Elizabeth Knepp sing it at a New Year's party on January 2, 1666, and weigh two theories: a theatrical pop tune of its day, or a libelous satire aimed at King Charles II and Barbara Villiers. From there we follow the broadsides that anchored the words while melodies mutated, the Scottish minor-mode tune arranged by Joseph Haydn in 1792, the pentatonic and unresolved American versions, Harry Smith's co ...