The Yellow Rose of Texas (song)

"The Yellow Rose of Texas"

1858 sheet music cover
Song
Published 1858
Genre American folk song

"The Yellow Rose of Texas" is a traditional American folk song. Members of the Western Writers of America chose it as one of the Top 100 Western songs of all time.[1] Several versions of the song have been recorded, including by Elvis Presley, Willie Nelson[2] and Mitch Miller.

Origin

The earliest known version is found in Christy's Plantation Melodies. No. 2, a songbook published under the authority of Edwin Pearce Christy in Philadelphia in 1853. Christy was the founder of the blackface minstrel show known as the Christy's Minstrels. Like most minstrel songs, the lyrics are written in a cross between the dialect historically spoken by African-Americans and standard American English. The song is written in the first person from the perspective of an African-American singer who refers to himself as a "darkey," longing to return to "a yellow girl," a term used to describe a light-skinned bi-racial woman born of African-American and white progenitors.[3]

The soundtrack to the TV miniseries James A. Michener's Texas dates a version of the song to June 2, 1933 and co-credits both the authorship and performance to Gene Autry and Jimmy Long. Don George reworked the original version of the song, which Mitch Miller made into a popular recording in 1955 that knocked Bill Haley's "(We're Gonna) Rock Around The Clock" from the top of the Best Sellers chart in the U.S.[4] Miller's version was featured in the motion picture Giant, and reached #1 on the U.S. pop chart the same week Giant star James Dean died. Stan Freberg had a simultaneous hit of a parody version in which the bandleader warred with the snare drummer, Alvin Stoller, who also featured prominently in Miller's arrangement. Billboard ranked Miller's version as the No. 3 song of 1955.[5]

Lyrics

Earliest known version, from Christy's Plantation Melodies. No. 2:

There's a yellow girl in Texas
That I'm going down to see
No other darkies know her
No darkey, only me
She cried so when I left her
That it like to broke my heart,
And if I only find her
we never more will part

Chorus:

She's the sweetest girl of colour
That this darkey ever knew
Her eyes are bright as diamonds
And sparkle like the dew
You may talk about your Dearest Mae
And sing of Rosa Lee
But the yellow Rose of Texas
Beats the belles of Tennessee

Where the Rio Grande is flowing
And the starry skies are bright
Oh, she walks along the river
In the quiet summer night
And she thinks if I remember
When we parted long ago
I promised to come back again
And not to leave her so

[Repeat chorus]

Oh, I'm going now to find her
For my heart is full of woe
And we'll sing the songs together
That we sang so long ago
We'll play the banjo gaily
And we'll sing our sorrows o'er
And the yellow Rose of Texas
shall be mine forever more

[Chorus]

The "Dearest Mae" and "Rosa Lee" referenced in the song are the titles of two other songs also appearing in Christy's Minstrels songbooks.[3]

Twenty-five years later, the lyrics were changed to eliminate the more racially specific lyrics, with "soldier" replacing "darkey"; and the first line of the chorus, "She's the sweetest rose of color" (a reference to the African-European free people of color) changed to "She's the sweetest little flower ..."[6]

"Dearest Mae" is replaced with "Clementine" in some variant versions of the song.

Civil War song

This song became popular among Confederate soldiers in the Texas Brigade during the American Civil War; upon taking command of the Army of Tennessee in July 1864, General John Bell Hood introduced it as a marching song.[7] The final verse and chorus were slightly altered by the remains of Hood's force after their crushing defeat at the Battle of Nashville that December:

(Last verse)

And now I'm going southward, for my heart is full of woe
I'm going back to Georgia, to find my Uncle Joe
You may talk about your Beauregard, and sing of Bobby Lee
But the gallant Hood of Texas he played hell in Tennessee

The modified lyrics reference famous Confederate military commanders Joseph Johnston, P. G. T. Beauregard, and Robert E. Lee. Texan veterans sang it openly to mock Hood's mishandling of their Nashville campaign.[8]

In this version of the chorus, "soldier" replaced "darkey." The same substitution is made throughout the song.

In September 1955, for six weeks, Mitch Miller had a Billboard number one hit with "The Yellow Rose of Texas",[9] and 13 months later, Miller's hit version was used for a key scene in the 1956 Texas-based film Giant. Miller's lyrics used "rosebud" and no words - except the term "yellow" - to indicate either Rose or the singer was a person of color.[10] The 1955 song became a gold record. The song achieved the #2 position in the Uk and the #1 position in Australia.

Nursery rhyme

There is also a children’s text, following the same tune, with different lyrics:

The Yellow Rose of Texas
And (the) Man of Laramie
Invited Davy Crockett
(oh) to have a cup of tea

(oh) The tea was so delicious
They had another cup
And poor old Davy Crockett
Had to do the washing up

"The Yellow Rose"

In 1984, country music artists Johnny Lee and Lane Brody recorded a song called "The Yellow Rose," which retained the original melody of "The Yellow Rose of Texas" but with new lyrics, for the title theme to a TV series also entitled The Yellow Rose. It was a Number One country hit that year.[11]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Western Writers of America (2010). "The Top 100 Western Songs". American Cowboy. Archived from the original on 10 August 2014.
  2. ↑ "Willie Nelson sings on Jimmy Sturr’s ‘Greatest Hits of Polka’".
  3. 1 2 Dunn, Jeffrey D; Lutzweiler, James (2014) [2010], "YELLOW ROSE OF TEXAS," Handbook of Texas Online, University of Texas at Austin: Texas State Historical Association
  4. ↑ "SteynOnline". steynonline.com.
  5. ↑ Billboard Year-End Hot 100 singles of 1955
  6. ↑ "The Yellow Rose of Texas Song Lyrics". tamu.edu.
  7. ↑ Lanning, Michael Lee. Civil War 100: The Stories Behind the Most Influential Battles, People and Events in the War between the States. Sourcebooks, Incorporated 2006. ISBN 978-1-4022-1040-2 p. 306.
  8. ↑ Walker, Gary C. The War in Southwest Virginia 1861-65. A&W Enterprise 1985. ISBN 0-9617896-9-7 p. 130.
  9. ↑ Whitburn, John (1983). Top 40 Hits 1955 to present. New York: Billboard Publications, Inc. p. 188. ISBN 0851122450.
  10. ↑ "MITCH MILLER lyrics - The Yellow Rose Of Texas". oldielyrics.com.
  11. ↑ Whitburn, Joel. The Billboard Book of Top 40 Country Hits. Billboard Books. p. 54.
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