2012Released
3:36

Did You Know?

Interesting facts and trivia about Shenandoah. By Songfacts®.

Also known as "Oh Shenandoah" or "Across The Wide Missouri," the origin of this traditional American folk song remains a mystery, though it gained popularity as a sea shanty in the mid-1800s. In an 1876 edition of The New Dominion Monthly, Captain Robert Chamblet Adams noted he first heard the tune, then known as "Shanadore," around 1850 as a capstan shanty to set the pace while the sailors hauled in the anchor. The lyrics first appeared in print in William L. Alden's article "Sailor Songs" for the July 1882 edition of Harper's New Monthly Magazine. Through its various versions, it was also popular with flatboatmen who carried goods and passengers along the Missouri River, loggers, and soldiers fighting on both sides of the Civil War.

Ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax explained the song most likely originated with American and French-Canadian fur traders that canoed down the Missouri River and its tributaries while singing songs to quell their loneliness. Early iterations tell the story of a trader who falls in love with the daughter of Shenandoah, a Native American chief who refuses to consent to their marriage and sends the heartbroken boater on his way. A version printed in 1910 in Ships, Sea Songs And Shanties, Collected by W. B. Whall, Master Mariner introduced a "Yankee skipper" who gets the chief drunk so he can steal his daughter. But ultimately, according to Lomax, the singer's true longing is for his homeland. He and his father, John A. Lomax, wrote in their 1947 book, Best Loved American Folk Songs: "The melody has the roll and surge and freedom of a tall ship sweeping along before a trade wind. The sonorous succession of long vowels and soft and liquid consonants blend perfectly with the romantic air. The lines are a call from the homeland to the sailor wandering far out across the seas, a call not from a sweetheart, a house, or even a town, but from the land itself, its rivers and its familiar and loved hills."

John Skenandoa, aka Shenandoah, was a well-known Oneida Iroquois chief living in Oneida Castle, a village in central New York state. He supported the English against the French in the Seven Years' War, which might explain his aversion to letting his daughter run off with a Frenchman. Shenandoah was also an ally during the Revolutionary War, leading 250 Oneida and Tuscarora warriors in support of American rebels and providing food for General George Washington in his troops during their six-month encampment at Valley Forge. Washington allegedly named the Shenandoah River, which runs through Virginia and West Virginia, in honor of the chief, with several other US locations following suit, including towns in Virginia, Louisiana, Texas, New York, and Iowa.

Song Analysis

Key, BPM (tempo) and time signature of Shenandoah.
EKey
MajorMode
4/4Time Signature
133BPM

Album

The album Shenandoah is released on.

Released By

The record label that has released Shenandoah.
Westminster Choir College
2012 Westminster Choir College
2012 Westminster Choir College

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