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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.[1] 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.[2]
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 and the Hurricanes recorded a rock and roll adaptation of the song, Red River Rock, in 1959. It became a Top 10 hit on the US and UK charts. A remake of this song by British group Silicon Teens is prominently featured in the score for the 1987 film Planes, Trains & Automobiles.
Johnny Cash wrote and performed a humorous song entitled "Please Don't Play Red River Valley" for his 1966 album Everybody Loves a Nut.
Garrison Keillor often performs the song on his popular radio show, A Prairie Home Companion.
The tune was also used to commemorate the Lincoln Battalion who fought at the Battle of Jarama for the Republicans during the Spanish Civil War. See There's a Valley in Spain called Jarama (Song)
Liverpool Football Club fans also sing a song based on the same tune called Poor Scouser Tommy, .[3]
Edith Fowke and Keith MacMillan. (1973). The Penguin Book of Canadian Folk Songs. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin.
- ^ Edith Fowke, "'The Red River Valley' Re-Examined", Western Folklore (1964): 163-171. Accessed from JSTOR on 24 October 2007
- ^ Red River Valley
- ^ poor scouser tommy
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