Traditional American · Key of C · Public domain
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This chart is written in C. Tap any key above the chart to see the whole song in that key, with every chord already worked out. To stay in C with different chord shapes, play it capo 3 with the A shapes, or capo 5 with the G shapes. Singing with a group? Pick the key where the highest note is comfortable for everyone, then print that page.
Shenandoah is a river song that went to sea. Nobody knows who first sang it; the earliest witnesses put it on packet ships and clippers in the 1850s and 1860s, where sailors sang it at the capstan, heaving the anchor up as they walked round, one man singing the lines and the whole crew answering "Away, you rolling river." The first printed text appeared in 1868, the shanty collector Captain R. C. Adams printed a version called "Shanadore" in 1876, and Harper's magazine followed in 1882. Sailors said the name "Shannadore," and the old collectors agree the song itself is American and most likely began with the boatmen and voyageurs of the Missouri, the river it never stops mentioning.
Who Shenandoah is depends on who is singing. In the oldest story version a fur trader loves the daughter of a chief named Shenandoah, usually identified with Skenandoah of the Oneida, who died in 1816; in other versions the name is simply the Virginia river, and the "daughter" became a sweetheart named Sally. By the 1920s it was in the shanty collections on both sides of the Atlantic, and R. R. Terry, who printed the text used here in 1921, wrote that he had never met a sailor who did not know it, "nor have I ever found any two who sang it exactly alike." Words and melody are in the public domain.
Five open chords in C: C, F, G, Am and Em (drop the Em and play C straight through "bound to go" if you want four). Do not count this one: the old shanty books warn that the tune cannot be written in one tempo, so let each line breathe and change chords on the words, not the beat. The first line sits on C and lifts to F on "hear" before settling back; "Away, you rolling river" is F to C; the third line is the emotional peak, F, then G and Am on "long to hear," back to F; and the last line walks C, Em, Am, G, C under "bound to go, 'cross the wide Missouri." Fingerpick it slowly, let the bass notes ring, and if you are singing with a group, have one voice take the first and third lines and everyone come in on "Away."
Tap any chord for its diagram, other voicings, and the notes inside it.
Another slow American ballad: Wayfaring Stranger chords and lyrics
All the campfire and folk song chord sheets, each one in every key.
Further reading: Oh Shenandoah (Wikipedia)
