[Ads-l] "The Red River Valley" (song; antedating to 1879)

[Bonnie Taylor-Blake]

I was thinking yesterday about the North American folk song "The Red
River Valley." I had always assumed it was American, but I see that
it's argued that it may well be Canadian and, further, that it may
have originated around 1869's Riel or Red River Rebellion.

Although this is summarized on the song's Wikipedia page
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_River_Valley_(song)), Edith
Fowkes's "'The Red River Valley' Revisited" (1964;
https://www.jstor.org/stable/1498900) might be helpful to some of you
when considering the song's history in Canada and the States.

I'm unfamiliar with more recent scholarship into the song's history,
so this may simply be old news, but I believe the following is the
so-far earliest extant version of the song. It appears as "Billy's
Parting" and doesn't mention the Red River Valley at all.

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It's a long time, you know, I have waited,
For those words that you never would say,
But alas! all my fond hopes are vanished,
For they tell me you're going away.

CHORUS.
Then sit down awhile ere you leave me,
Do not hasten to bid me adieu,
But remember the dear little valley,
And the girl that has loved you so true.

>From this valley they tell me you're going,
We will miss your blue eyes and bright smile,
But alas! You take with you the sunshine
That has brightened our pathway awhile.

Remember the valley you're leaving,
How lonely and drear [sic] it will be be,
Remember the hearts you are breaking --
Keep true to your promise to me!

(New Orleans, November 22, 1879.)

[Miss A.W. Speyerer, The Daily City Item (New Orleans), 25 November
1879, p. 3. https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-daily-item-red-river-valley-11251/170546720/.
I assume that Miss Speyerer was merely the contributor, not the
author.]

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Compare this with the second earliest version that I've found
(1885/1886), in "Halifax to the Saskatchewan: 'Our boys' in the Riel
Rebellion: A musical and dramatique burlesque"
(https://archive.org/details/P001432/page/31/mode/2up?q=%22remember+the+red+river+valley%22).

The existence of the above pamphlet suggests a clear connection
between "The Red River Valley" and the Riel Rebellion, but I'll note
that there were two Riel Rebellions, one in 1869-1870 and a second in
1885. As the Preface indicates, this pamphlet contains skits related
to the second rebellion.

Further, the song on the previous page ("Hard Tack Come Again No
More") is a reworking of the well-known "Hard Times, Come Again No
More," tailored specifically for this series of sketches. Is it
possible, then, that this 1885/1886 appearance of "The Red River
Valley" was also a reworking of an earlier form, one perhaps lacking
mention of the Red River Valley, to fit into the context of the Riel
Rebellion? Or is this the song that's been said to have emerged ca.
1870, shortly after the first rebellion was put down?

The next version I've found (Wisconsin; 1887) seems to be a hybrid of
the 1879 and 1885/1886 versions
(https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-weekly-wisconsin-red-river-valley-9/170546463/).
Importantly, I think, this Wisconsin version and the 1879 New Orleans
lyrics lack the last three stanzas of the Canadian 1885/1886 form,
which includes "your home by the ocean," "the boy who came west," and
"the western maid," phrases that seem to have been important to tying
the song to the Riel Rebellion. (See Fowkes for more.)

Fowkes had argued that the data she collected from Canadians
remembering hearing "The Red River Valley" before 1896 suggested that
the Red River of the song was the [Northern] Red River, which flows
from North Dakota and Minnesota into southern Manitoba, and not the
Red River [of the South], which flows along the Texas/Oklahoma border,
into Arkansas, and finally into Louisiana.

That may be true, but that a "Red River"-less song was known in New
Orleans in 1879 makes me wonder whether, as is often the case, we're
simply looking at an older song born well before either Riel
Rebellion, one that was adapted to the different places and
circumstances in which its singers lived. Perhaps it's just a tune
about migration, love, and loss, themes common to Canadians and
Americans at the time.

If anyone can push this back beyond 1879, I'm all ears.

-- Bonnie

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org