“Moody River” is a song written by Chase Webster, a country and rockabilly singer who first recorded it himself early in 1961. Within months Pat Boone recorded a version that became a number-one pop hit, and it is Boone’s recording that made the song famous.
The lyric is a tragedy. Its narrator comes to a meeting place by the Moody River to find his sweetheart gone — only a glove and a farewell note left by the muddy water — and learns that, shamed by her own unfaithfulness, she has drowned herself in the river. That dark, melodramatic story gave the gentle melody a haunting undertow.
The song passed from pop and country into the bluegrass and acoustic repertoire.
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