I'm very attached to the Red River Valley as a song but I heard it first on my Daddy's knee back of Lanark in the Ottawa valley Canada sung by light of coal oil lanterns at some farmers dance/social as they called them then. As I grew up I played it on my guitar but the lyrics were always slightly twisted depending where I was in Canada and the U.S. as we casually would have a figer pickin' jam with new friends.

Now that I've live in the Balkans for many years it amazes me how the tune has been adapted to different languages while the root message remains the same. As a child I always thought it was about the Red River valley in Manitoba. Shows what I knew as a 6 year old!

Richard Gibson-Shaw