Chords for Oregon Trail Folk Music Project - Hank Cramer

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Hi, my name is Hank Kramer and the song that I'm singing has two names.
It started out as Shenandoah and
later became known as Across the Wide Missouri.
_ The song probably originated in the 1790s, about 50 years before the Oregon Trail opened up.
It started out as a deepwater sailors song.
Sailors had working songs that they'd sing.
They were called sea shanties and they were always sung a cappella, meaning without musical instruments.
The sailors had musical instruments and knew how to play them, but while they were working
they didn't have a free hand for an instrument.
So they'd sing these sea shanties a cappella
to a certain rhythm to get work done.
And Shenandoah was sung as they walked around a machine called the capstan.
It was basically a winch that they would haul the anchor up before they started a long sea journey.
And the song was called Shenandoah.
We believe, we don't know for certain,
but we [Gm] believe that Lewis and Clark brought the song west with them in their expedition from 1803 to 1806.
Then later on when the Oregon Trail opened beginning in 1843, the emigrants [N] brought the song with them and sang it and played it on
their fiddles and banjos and their concertinas.
But as time passed, the Shenandoah River back in Virginia meant nothing to them,
but the big river to them was the Missouri.
They crossed the Missouri on the first day of their journey.
And even though they crossed it in a single day,
once they crossed it, they left behind civilization as they knew it.
Churches, banks, schools, courts,
everything that you associated with civilization was left behind when you crossed the Missouri.
So by the year
1850, the song is being published in songbooks and it's being referred to as Across the Wide Missouri because the emigrants actually changed the words and
changed the title as they sang the song and came west.
It was one of their very favorite songs.
And I learned the song in third grade when I was a school kid and it was my favorite song from elementary school days
and I'm still singing it today.
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_ [C] _ [G] _ _ _ [C] _ _ _
[G] _ _ _ _ _ [Em] _ _ _
_ [G] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [Bm] _ _ [D] _ _ [G] _ _
[D] _ [G] _ _ _ Oh Shenandoah, I'm bound to leave you
[C] Way, hey, hey
You [G] rolling river
[Em] Oh Shenandoah, [G] I'm bound to leave you
_ [Em] Way, hey, hey
[Bm] We're bound away
[G] From this world of sorrow
_ Oh Shenandoah, I love your daughter
_ [C] Way, hey, [Em] [G] hey
You rolling river
And I [Em] still dream of her [G] far across the water
_ _ [Em] Way, hey, hey
We're [Bm] bound away
_ [D] From this [G] world of sorrow
For seven years
I've been a rover
_ [C] Way, [G] hey, hey
You rolling river
_ [Em] Oh, but I'll return
[G] to be her lover
_ _ [Em] Way, hey, hey
We're [Bm] bound away
[Em] Across the wide [G] _
Missouri
_ That old Missou
She's a rambling river
[C] Way, hey, hey
[G] You rolling river
And [Em] all the Indians [G] camped
along her border
_ _ [Em] Way, hey, hey
[Bm] We're bound away
_ [Em] Across the [D] wide [G] Missouri
_ _ _ I'm _
_ [C] _ [D] _ [G] _ _ [C] _ _ _
[D] _ [G] _ _ _ _ [Em] _ _ _
_ [G] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [Bm] _ _ _ [D] _ _ _
_ [G] _ _ _ _ pushing on
when dawns are breaking
_ [C] I'm going across
[G] that wide Missouri
_ [Em] I'm going west
[G] though my heart is aching
_ [Em] Way, hey, hey
We're [Bm] bound away
_ [Em] Across the [D] wide [G] Missouri _ _ Oh Shenandoah
I'll not deceive _ you
[C] Way, hey, hey
[G] You rolling river
[D] _ [Em] Oh [G] Shenandoah
I'm bound to leave you
_ _ [Em] Way, hey, hey
We're [Bm] bound away _ _
[Em] Across the [F#] wide [D] Missouri
[G] _ _ _ _ [Dm] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
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