"Oh Shenandoah" (also called "Shenandoah", "Across the Wide Missouri", "Rolling River", "Oh, My Rolling River", "World of Misery") is a traditional folk song, sung in the Americas, of uncertain origin, dating to the early 19th century. The song "Shenandoah" appears to have originated with American and Canadian voyageurs or fur traders traveling down the Missouri River in canoes and has developed several different sets of lyrics. Some lyrics refer to the Oneida chief Shenandoah and a canoe-going trader who wants to marry his daughter. By the mid 1800s versions of the song had become a sea shanty heard or sung by sailors in various parts of the world. The song is number 324 in the Roud Folk Song Index. Other variations (due to the influence of its oral dispersion among different regions) include the Caribbean (St. Vincent) version, "World of Misery", referring not to an "Indian princess" but to "the white mullata".

History

Until the 19th century, only adventurers who sought their fortunes as trappers and traders of beaver fur ventured into the lands of the indigenous peoples as far west as the Missouri River. Most of these French colonial "voyageurs" in the fur trade era were loners who became friendly with, and sometimes married, Native Americans. Some lyrics of this song heard by and before 1860 tell the story of a trader who fell in love with the daughter of the Oneida Iroquois chief Shenandoah (1710–1816) who lived in the central New York state town of Oneida Castle. He was a co-founder of the Oneida Academy which became Hamilton College in Clinton, New York, and is buried on the campus grounds. The canoe-going fur-trading voyageurs were great singers, and songs were an important part of their culture. In the early 19th century flatboatmen who plied the Missouri River were known for their shanties, including "Oh Shenandoah". Sailors heading down the Mississippi River picked up the song and made it a capstan shanty that they sang while hauling in the anchor. This boatmen's song found its way down the Mississippi River to American clipper ships—and thus around the world. The song had become popular as a sea shanty with seafaring sailors by the mid 1800s. A version of the song called "Shanadore" was printed in Capt. Robert Chamblet Adams' article "Sailors' Songs" in the April 1876 issue of The New Dominion Monthly. He also included it in his 1879 book On Board the "Rocket". "Shanadore" was later printed as part of William L. Alden's article "Sailor Songs" in the July 1882 issue of Harper's New Monthly Magazine, and in the 1892 book Songs that Never Die. Alfred Mason Williams' 1895 Studies in Folk-song and Popular Poetry called it a "good specimen of a bowline chant". Percy Grainger recorded Charles Rosher of London England singing Shenandoah in 1906 and the recording is available online via the British Library Sound Archive. A recording sung by former shantyman Stanley Slade of Bristol, England, in 1943 is also publicly available. In a 1930 letter to the UK newspaper The Times a former sailor who had worked aboard clipper ships that carried wool between Australia and Great Britain in the 1880s said that he believed the song had originated as an African American spiritual which developed into a work song. One of the first popular singers to record it was Paul Robeson, who released several versions from the 1930s onwards.

Lyrics

Since "Shenandoah" was a riverman's and then sailor's song and went through numerous changes and versions over the years and centuries, there are no set lyrics. Modern variations may include lyrics such as the following:

Earlier versions

Lyrics from prior to 1860, given by Whall (1910) were reported as follows: J.E. Laidlaw of San Francisco reported hearing a version sung by a black Barbadian sailor aboard the Glasgow ship Harland in 1894: Lyrics to "Oh Shenandoah" as sung by Tennessee Ernie Ford (1959):

Modern usage

The song is popular in local organizations such as Shenandoah University, Southern Virginia University, Washington and Lee University, Virginia Tech and the Virginia Military Institute. "Shenandoah" was proposed as the "interim state song" for Virginia in 2006 with updated lyrics. The proposal was contentious because the standard folksong refers to the Missouri River and in most versions of the song the name "Shenandoah" refers to an Indian chief, not the Shenandoah Valley or Shenandoah River, both of which lie almost entirely in Virginia. "Our Great Virginia" which uses the melody of "Shenandoah" was designated by the Virginia Legislature as the official traditional state song of Virginia in 2015. In the movies it is featured in the soundtrack of the 1965 movie Shenandoah, starring Jimmy Stewart. It is also heard repeatedly in 1947's Mourning Becomes Electra, and as part of a medley in the 1962 film How the West Was Won. As a sea chanty, it is heard in Java Head (1934). Choral arrangements of the song have been used in the films The Good Shepherd and Nixon. Members of the Western Writers of America chose it as one of the Top 100 Western songs of all time. Various arrangements by Percy Grainger have been recorded by John Shirley-Quirk and other classically trained singers. "A song of the waters: variations on the folksong Shenandoah" is a classical composition by James Cohn. At least one version was arranged by Leslie Woodgate. The song is featured in the Fallout series, being played on Appalachia Radio in the game Fallout 76.

Selected notable recordings

Footnotes