Red River Valley (song)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Red River Valley is a folk song often sung by the Sons of the Pioneers. It is still widely believed to be a Texas re-working of a popular American song of 1896, "In the Bright Mohawk Valley." However, research has found that it was known in at least five Canadian provinces before then. This finding led to speculation that it was composed at the time of the Wolseley expedition to the northern Red River Valley in Manitoba, and depicts the sorrow of a local girl or woman as her soldier lover prepares to return to Ontario.
A version of the song was recorded by Bill Haley and the Four Aces of Western Swing in the late 1940s.
The song and tune have been used in numerous films. It was particularly memorable in John Ford's The Grapes of Wrath, whose tale of displaced Oklahomans helps associate it with the southern Red River.
Johnny Cash, on his 1966 album Everybody Loves a Nut, would write and perform a humorous song entitled "Please Don't Play Red River Valley".
Garrison Keillor often performs the song on his popular radio show, A Prairie Home Companion.
[edit] Lyric
From this valley they say you are going
We will miss your bright eyes and sweet smile
For they say you are taking the sunshine
That has brightened our path for a while
Come and sit by my side if you love me
Do not hasten to bid me adieu
But remember the Red River Valley
And the cowboy who loved you so true
Won't you think of the valley you're leaving
Oh how lonely, how sad it will be?
Oh think of the fond heart you're breaking
And the grief you are causing to me
As you go to your home by the ocean
May you never forget those sweet hours
That we spent in the Red River Valley
And the love we exchanged mid the flowers
[edit] Source
Edith Fowke and Keith MacMillan. (1973). The Penguin Book of Canadian Folk Songs. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin.
 |
This rock song-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
