I'm always trying to think of good tunes to play on my fretted dulcimer, and lately I thought, "Why not the Tennessee Waltz?" So I tried it and thought, "Good grief! That song's got a range!" It's an octave plus a fifth, unusually big for a vocal number.

I've always thought it was kind of ugly, actually. One thing ugly about it is when people sing "to the Ten NES-see Waltz" in the first line. That increases the range from octave + third to octave + fifth, usually guaranteeing a high-pitched squeak. It also converts the measure from the Tennessee Waltz to the Tennessee Mazurka. (A mazurka is in 3/4 but has the accent on count 2 or 3.)

Meanwhile, I have a sister-in-law from Tennessee. She is an authentic Tennessean, not just somebody who went there to buy a condo. How authentic is she?

She is so Tennessean that if somebody said to her, "You g*d*amn idiot why the f*ck can't you fix that fr*gging thing?" she would say that that person blessed her out.

She taught me "I'll Fly Away" and "To Canaan's Land" years before the folk clubs heard of them. Also, her family had 80-foot magnolia trees in the pasture.

Finally, (to get back to the song) she pronounces Tennessee with the accent on the first syllable. Where I come from, it rhymes with Hennessey, but in case says that in Wales, Hennessey is pronounced Hen-NESS-y, let's say that if you take "tennis" and add a softly- spoken long e at the end, you've got it.

Now take that pronunciation and plug it into the Tennessee Waltz, and the tune stops limping. The Tenn gets a dotted quarter, the nes is a mere eighth (same pitch as Tenn, not a high squeak), and ee gets a quarter. Then you can repeat this pattern at other places in the song (such as beaut-i-ful Ten-nes-see as the end)to make it pleasing to yourself. It's just folk process.

I searched for a MIDI of this tune and found quite a few. But Lord, what a plinking of mandolin strings and what a plethora of self-pitying dissonances. The tune came on the radio in 1950, (sung by somebody from Oklahoma) and 1950 was still the big band era. So I sat down at the piano and came up with the following:

TENNESSEE WALTZ
      C                              C-higher F
I was dancing with my darling to the Tennessee Waltz,

       C                        G plus note A
When an old friend I happened to see.

    C   
Introduced him to my loved one,

    C-higher       Am
And while they were waltzing,

   C               Dm             C
My friend stole my sweetheart from me.

    C high    G             Dm       C
I remember the night and the Tennessee Waltz.

      Am                        G
Now I know just how much I have lost.

       C   
Yes, I lost my little darlin'

    Am             F
The night they were playin'

C             Dm       C
That beautiful Tennessee Waltz.
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Then you repeat the second half, but you change the chords
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    C high    Dm/A          Dm       Em
I remember the night and the Tennessee Waltz.

      Am                        G plus note A
Now I know just how much I have lost.

       C   
Yes, I lost my little darlin'

    Am             F
The night they were playin'

C             Dm       C plus note A
That beautiful Tennessee Waltz.
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When I say "G plus note A," that means make up a little tune (bass run)using those notes. I don't suggest whacking them all at once.

Throwing an A into the last C chord makes it sound modern and also signals to the dancers that the dance is over. I like it.