A Few Questions About O Shenandoah
Tom Handy
Sorry these questions are so vague, but hopefully someone can answer
them for me.
First, I just have a general question. Is there anything that is
considered the "real" lyrics to O Shenandoah? The reason I ask is
that I've heard 7 or 8 different versions of this song and each seems
to have different lyrics. The most complete seem to tell a tale that
I think is about some guy that goes to some Indian village and wants
to take some girl away with him to marry him.
But other versions of the song I've heard seem to leave a lot of this
out, with just general lines like "O Shenandoah, I long to see you".
I'm generally curious as to what the origins of this song are....it
seems quite popular, and I would say it is one of my favorite songs.
All of the different variations of the lyrics make me think it is a
very old song. I'd be curious about any history about the song.
I'm also a little confused about exactly what areas it
references.....I had always associated Shenandoah as something very
local (I live in the Northern Virginia, DC area) but it clearly seems
much bigger, especially judging by all the towns named Shenandoah.
Secondly, this is the really vague question, but maybe someone is
familiar with it. On WAMU (run by American University) I was
listening to a program a few years ago....it might have been American
Roots, or it might have just been there general bluegrass. But they
played what sounded like a fairly modern version of O Shenandoah. It
had a male vocalist but also 2 female vocalists singing the chorus,
and it was a little more of a "rocking" version of this song than most
I have heard. As I said, this is really vague, but does anyone have
any ideas of what this recording might have been? The only thing I
can think of note is that the chorus was just "O Shenando" instead of
"O Shenandoah".
Third question, equally vague. A friend of mine had given me a CD a
couple of years ago that was a collection of bluegrass and folk music,
and it had a great female vocalist performance of "O Shenandoah".
I've found performances by Connie Dover and Jane Sibeery, and they are
good, but they aren't the one I heard. This collection came out in
the mid to late 90's as I recall.
Anyone who thinks they may have any answers to these questions, I'd
really appreciate it.
-Tom
Harold Groot
>First, I just have a general question. Is there anything that is
>considered the "real" lyrics to O Shenandoah? The reason I ask is
>that I've heard 7 or 8 different versions of this song and each seems
>to have different lyrics. The most complete seem to tell a tale that
>I think is about some guy that goes to some Indian village and wants
>to take some girl away with him to marry him.
>But other versions of the song I've heard seem to leave a lot of this
>out, with just general lines like "O Shenandoah, I long to see you".
I doubt if there is a complete consensus on ANY old folksong about
what the "real" lyrics are. There are almost always a lot of variants
around - that's just the nature of the beast. But that being said, I
can't recall any versions that DIDN'T have the guy pining for the
Indian maid. I guess it would have to be a really abbreviated,
3-verses-and-out type version to leave all that out. So you can feel
pretty confident that the full version of the song includes this
storyline even if there are variations in the verses.
I seem to recall that there was a moderately long discussion on this
song in this newsgroup a year or two back. You might want to do one
of the special Google searches of old archives and look for it.
James N. Stewart
"Tom Handy" <tomh...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:27f097af.0205...@posting.google.com...
> Hi all,
>
> Sorry these questions are so vague, but hopefully someone can answer
> them for me.
>
> First, I just have a general question. Is there anything that is
> considered the "real" lyrics to O Shenandoah?
No.
Generally it is the existence of variant forms that tips one off to the
traditinal nature of the song. This one appears to have been through the
mill of the sea shanty era and wound up in its more or less common form as a
hodge pogde of American references. If there is an original hisotirical
text I have never seen it.
The name may well be a reference to an historical person, but he does not
seem to have had any association with the river in Missouri. I believe the
standard interpretation is more or less that one found in Stan Hugill's book
about shantying.
Tom Handy
rec.music.folk and found some interesting discussions about this, and
I see what you all mean. Sounds like it is a really interesting
history but one which will probably never be known for sure. I
thought some of the speculation though about the original words was
interesting (i.e. some ideas that the song originally used the word
misery which got changed to missouri, and that Shenandoah may in fact
be a corruption of any number of old words and names).
Also found an interesting link to a discussion back in 1998 on the
mudcat.org site about the song.
It does seem to help explain why there are so many different lyrics
for this song.
I'm still hoping someone may have some guesses on those performanced I
asked about, but thanks for your help.
-Tom
Jerry Dallal
were asked to come up with their own arrangements of Shenandoah. Some of the
results can be heard at
http://artists.mp3s.com/artists/353/rmmga_projects.html
JOHN-PATRICK YEISER
capstan chantey; a work chant sailors used to slowly keep pace while turning
the capstan to the anchor sail sheets, etc. The words to work chants are
often improvised resulting in many lyrical variations. Shenandoah,
according to Lomax, refers to the Indians from the area now having the same
name. He adds that many calvary soldiers used the song while riding. During
the wars with Indians many soldiers had relationships with Indian maidens
spawning more inconsistant verses.
John
www.musiclegacy.com
"Tom Handy" <tomh...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
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