“Shenandoah” is a powerful and mysterious song of America, which people everywhere find moving. I think of it as “of” America both in the sense that it comes from America and in some difficult-to-pin-down fashion it is about America. It is neither a patriotic tune nor an anthem, but it gets at America in a more oblique way; one might compare it to the way in which the song “We’ll Meet Again” conjures thoughts of England, or “Danny Boy” makes people think of the Emerald Isle, or “Myfanwy” evokes Wales. Arguably, like those tunes, it is a national song of heartache.

It’s a song that has long been sung around the world, with many variations. A modern case in point is the rather lovely rendition (embedded via YouTube below) by a Norwegian chanteuse named Sissel.

Sissel’s is not dissimilar to many latter-day versions of “Shenandoah” in that it includes very few words. She sings basically just a few fragments of much longer and older renditions, of the like one still might hear played in folk music circles. It is, in terms of the lyric, stripped down; in fact there is no definable narrative at all. Yet, married to that tune, I think most any person of flesh and blood finds it deeply affecting and evocative.

Oh Shenandoah, I long to hear you
Away, you rolling river
Oh Shenandoah, I long to hear you
Away, we’re bound away
’Cross the wide Missouri

Oh Shenandoah, I love your daughter
Away, you rolling river
Oh Shenandoah, I love your daughter
Away, we’re bound away
’Cross the wide Missouri

Oh Shenandoah, I’m bound to leave you
Away, you rolling river
Oh Shenandoah, I’ll not deceive you
Away, we’re bound away
’Cross the wide Missouri

There is of-course much history to the song—enough to fill a couple of fat books. The most basic story is this: The “Shenandoah” of the title (although often taken to be the river in Virginia) was an Iroquois Indian chief, and some of the earliest known lyrics tell a story of a white trader who longed to marry that chief’s daughter but was rejected. The composer is unknown, and as far as anyone seems to be aware it emerged into what was then the popular consciousness as a shanty sung by boatmen and traders voyaging down the Missouri river in the middle of the 19th century. Being traveling types, some of these men ultimately would have carried the song across the Atlantic and beyond.

History and musicology aside, what makes the song so fascinating to me is just how powerfully poignant it is even in its most simplified incarnations; actually, especially in its most simplified incarnations. Why that is must remain ineffable on a certain level, but I have not been able to stop myself wondering about it.

I think that this magical pairing of words and music expresses something fundamental to our human condition that we rarely encounter in song, and rarely enunciate, but inwardly we know to be true. Hearing it shakes us up, albeit in a very good way. There is a sense of mourning in the song, but it is without bitterness. The singer expresses deep longings, but only knows that he (or she) is bound to go, across the mighty river that rolls unceasingly on. Shenandoah himself is being called upon not so much as a person but more like an ancient spirit of the land. There is a deep sense of wonder and submission in the face of the vast spaces and forces that must carry the singer along and inevitably distance him from those he loves.

I would suggest that one doesn’t have to have been voyaging down the Missouri river in the 1850s to have experienced that scenario; rather, it is a very true way of looking at our own lives. After all, we have far less control than we mostly allow ourselves to believe. We come into existence not through any act of our own will. The circumstances into which we are born are beyond our control, and there are countless forces that impact our lives in ways we cannot avoid. We spend our lives striving for autonomy within that which is left to us, losing many we love along the way; finally, nature also carries our own selves away in death. We are specks of dust tossed about in an inconceivably vast landscape. As another songwriter has written: “As for man, his days are like grass / He flourishes like a flower of the field / For the wind passes over it, and it is gone / And its place knows it no more.” (Psalm 103)

The words and music of “Shenandoah” get at that knowledge and that feeling, and at the yearning and unavoidable loss that underlies all human lives, and yet the song does not answer with anger or with hopelessness or with cynicism, but only with a profound sense of awe and of acceptance. Hearing it can, as they say, make strong men cry. It can be quite cathartic and it is, without doubt, absolutely sublime.

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At any rate that’s what I have come to think about the song. Girding up to writing this little thing on it, I’ve listened to many versions. I do believe the power of “Shenandoah” can astound those who sing it. No singer or performer is bigger than this song; they all bow to it in some way. There are, at the time of writing, many stirring and/or interesting renditions on YouTube, and I’ll link below to a few.

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The good old Robert Shaw Chorale can stand in here for all the countless male voice choirs that have performed “Shenandoah” and continue to do so. (There’s a very tasteful slideshow video in this case; believe it or not, not all on YouTube can be so described.)

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Paul Robeson receives credit for popularizing the song in the era of recorded music, and his rather glorious rendition is a touchstone.

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Giving the ladies and the Europeans another look-in, the clip below is a grand concert performance from Slovenia.

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No one should miss hearing the song in the dulcet baritone of the great Tennessee Ernie Ford, in this clip from his television show where he evokes the sea shanty character of the tune.

(Ernie Ford, by the way, was quite the historian of song. As a case in point, check out his double album of Civil War songs: one platter with the Yankee tunes, and the other featuring the Confederate ones. Just try that today, kids.)

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The version below by Stuart Foster is titled “Across the Wide Missouri,” and is an example of those that adapt the song into something of a more conventional love ballad. “My lady love, she stands awaitin’ … on the banks, I hear her calling …” Changing the words in this way makes a serviceable love song out of a composition that is otherwise so much more than that. So, in this case, what it loses in the translation is what’s interesting to yours truly.

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Somewhat in the interest of completeness, we should not forget that there is a movie named Shenandoah, from 1965, directed by Andrew McLaglen. It uses the tune as its theme, but in the context of the river in Virginia and the Civil War. It stars the incomparable Jimmy Stewart and has plenty of other elements on paper that would lead one to think it ought to be a classic, and to many it is; unquestionably, it’s a much-loved film. Yet, I re-watched it recently and have to confess I found it to be a mind-blowing mess. If you want Jimmy Stewart in any kind of western context, my recommendation would be to watch The Far Country, or Bend of the River, or Winchester ’73, all directed by Anthony Mann. Or The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, by John Ford.

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If anyone had a voice that could almost still the waves, it was Liam Clancy, and I’d sure want him on my boat to belt out “Shenandoah.” To me, his is one of the essential renditions.

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And ending with another Irishman (they seem to think the song is theirs), below is a clip featuring the great Van Morrison performing “Shenandoah” with The Chieftains. There is no one who can bring out the transcendent nature of song better than the Belfast Cowboy, and that is not stated lightly.

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And it’s away we’re bound to go.