Down in the Valley

About this arrangement

An American folk song in a slow 3/4, three beats to a bar, sung in the southern mountains long before anyone recorded it. It is all crotchets (quarter notes) and long dotted minims (dotted half notes) held across the bar line, so the hard part is the counting. The hand sits with the thumb on the B below middle C, so the fingers cover B, C, D, E and F, and at the start of each half the thumb reaches down to G for “Down” and “Hang”. The left hand plays a waltz bass, a low note and two chords, on C and G7.

Practice tip: Count “1 2 3” out loud through the long notes: “ley” lasts four beats and “low” and “blow” seven. The left hand keeps the waltz going while the right hand waits.

The words

Down in the valley, valley so low, Hang your head over, hear the wind blow.

A short history

“Down in the Valley” is an American folk song, number 943 in the Roud Folk Song Index. The Traditional Ballad Index gives 1909 as its earliest date, from the songs collected by Henry Belden for the Missouri Folk-Lore Society, and Carl Sandburg printed it in The American Songbag in 1927.

The singer is far from a sweetheart, and in some versions asks for a letter to be sent to Birmingham Jail, which is why the song is also known by that name. Tom Darby and Jimmie Tarlton recorded it as “Birmingham Jail” in 1927, and their record sold over 200,000 copies, one of Columbia’s best sellers of the time.

In 1945 the composer Kurt Weill and the writer Arnold Sundgaard made it the starting point of a short opera, also called Down in the Valley, and it has been a campfire and school song ever since.

Quick facts

Tune

Traditional (American, printed by 1909)

Key

C major

Time signature

3/4

Length

16 bars

Tempo

Gently, crotchet = 108

Difficulty

Level 3: Notes below middle C (piece 31 of 201)

Type

Folk song

Hands

Both: melody in the right hand, chords in the left

Copyright

Public domain tune; arrangement by Digital Greenhouse, free for personal and classroom use

Questions and answers