My father's family settled in North Dakota's Red River Valley around 1917. When he died, the song kept going through my mind. When I arrived at the depth of meaning in the imagery, it was the simple and beautiful duality of our mortality and the gift of life: the Red River Valley is the birth canal, and we all pass this way through the mortal coil. Finally I knew what my version must be like, so I wrote it for him.
Getting the song on paper was a very emotional experience, and perhaps it was due to the intensity of poetic concentration and grieving, but something strange happened to illuminate the moment when I knew it was done: there was a loud clattering noise in the next room, and when I went to investigate I discovered the menorah on the mantel had somehow fallen so that it was standing upright on its base on the seat of an antique Savonarola chair.
How this might have happened is very difficult to explain because the Savonarola chair was against the same wall, next the mantel, and at least three feet away. The menorah fell not only down but quite a distance to the side, and landed upright. In that moment it felt like my father had found a way to let me know he was with me.
My father was from a family that went to Russia with Catherine The Great. They were Germans From Russia.
Another odd thing happened as I was driving to Cambridge to meet my husband after work that same day. I was listening to NPR's "All Things Considered," where they were interviewing a musicologist of American folk music. He said, among other things, that a creditable recording of "Red River Valley" had not been made in more than forty years, and it was "long overdue for a hit." I thought that was astonishing, and of course I agreed with him. It is a strange story, but true.
Do, please, let me know what you think of the song.
