Listen
Arrangement: Ian J. Watts / Mike Wilbury · Singalongasong Band / ClassicRocks
Lyrics
Down in the valley, the valley so low,
Hang your head over, hear the wind blow,
Hear the wind blow love, hear the wind blow,
Hang your head over, hear the wind blow.
Roses love sunshine, Violets love dew,
Angels in heaven know I love you.
If you don't love me, love whom you please,
Put your arms 'round me, give my heart ease.
Give my heart ease love, give my heart ease,
Put your arm 'round me, give my heart ease.
Write me a letter, send it by mail,
Send it in care of The Birmingham Jail,
Birmingham Jail love, Birmingham Jail,
Send it in care of The Birmingham Jail.
Build me a castle, forty feet high,
So I can see her as she rides by,
As she rides by love, as she rides by,
So I can see her as she rides by.
Down in the valley, the valley so low,
Hang your head over, hear the wind blow.
Traditional lyrics — public domain. Arrangement © Singalongasong Band / ClassicRocks.
History & Background
History & Origin
"Down in the Valley" is one of the most beloved of all American folk songs, its origins lying in the Appalachian and Southern mountain traditions of the nineteenth century. The song has the simple, direct emotional power of the best folk music: a speaker, likely imprisoned or separated from his beloved, addresses his absent love and asks only that she write him a letter and acknowledge what he feels.
The valley, the wind, the late evening train — these images do more than describe a landscape. They evoke a particular quality of loneliness, the kind that is sharpened rather than soothed by natural beauty. The instruction to "hang your head over, hear the wind blow" is an instruction to listen, to pay attention, to feel what the singer feels.
The song has been collected in various forms across Kentucky, Virginia, and Tennessee. It is sometimes titled "Birmingham Jail" in versions where the speaker is explicitly a prisoner; other versions have the speaker simply far from home. In all versions, the emotional core is the same: distance, longing, and the inadequacy of letters and wind to carry what the heart needs to say.
The verse "roses love sunshine, violets love dew, angels in heaven know I love you" is one of the most quoted lines in American folk poetry — it appeared in printed broadsides as early as the 1850s and has been set to several different tunes. Its combination of natural imagery and cosmic witness ("angels in heaven") gives the declaration of love an almost religious gravity.
The song was popularised in the folk revival of the 1950s and 1960s by artists including Burl Ives and Pete Seeger, and has been recorded hundreds of times since.
