Traditional · Key of G · Public domain
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This chart is written in G. Tap any key above the chart to see the whole song in that key, with every chord already worked out. To stay in G with different chord shapes, play it capo 3 with the E shapes, or capo 5 with the D shapes, or capo 7 with the C shapes. Singing with a group? Pick the key where the highest note is comfortable for everyone, then print that page.
Nobody knows who wrote Red River Valley. The oldest copy anyone has found is a handwritten one marked "Nemaha 1879" and "Harlan 1885," both names of counties in Nebraska and towns in Iowa, and the first time it was printed was in a Milwaukee newspaper, the Weekly Wisconsin, in September 1887, after a reader wrote in asking for the words. In 1896 a New York publisher issued it as sheet music under the title "In the Bright Mohawk Valley" with James J. Kerrigan named as the writer, and it has gone by a dozen local names since: Bright Sherman Valley, Bright Laurel Valley, Cowboy Love Song.
The Canadian folklorist Edith Fowke argued that the Red River in the song is the northern one, which runs between Minnesota and North Dakota into Manitoba, and that the song may go back to the soldiers of the 1870 Wolseley Expedition leaving the Red River settlement; the evidence is thin, but the weight of it says the song means that river and not the Texas one. Carl Sandburg printed it with nine verses in The American Songbag in 1927, the same year Hugh Cross and Riley Puckett made the first record of it under the name Red River Valley, and John Ford used it to haunting effect in The Grapes of Wrath in 1940. The words here are Sandburg's 1927 text, in which it is the girl, not the cowboy, who sings the chorus. Words and melody are in the public domain.
Three chords in G (G, D7 and C) plus a passing G7, in an easy 4/4 that should walk, not trot. Every line starts with two pickup syllables ("From this," "We will") before the first strum. Line one goes G, D7 on "say," back to G on "going"; line two stays on G and lands on D7 for "smile"; line three is G, a quick G7 on "taking," then C for "sunshine"; and the last line sits on D7 for "brightens our pathway" and resolves to G on "while." The chorus is the same four lines of chords under different words, so once a group has the verse it has the whole song. Keep the strum gentle, bass note then a brush, and let "adieu" hang on the D7 for a moment before you come back in.
Tap any chord for its diagram, other voicings, and the notes inside it.
Another river, another farewell: Shenandoah chords and lyrics
All the campfire and folk song chord sheets, each one in every key.
Further reading: Red River Valley (Wikipedia)
