{"id":20145,"date":"2012-01-25T23:50:19","date_gmt":"2012-01-25T23:50:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=20145"},"modified":"2013-10-12T16:31:05","modified_gmt":"2013-10-12T16:31:05","slug":"yellow-rose-of-texas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=20145","title":{"rendered":"Yellow Rose of Texas"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yellow Rose of Texas<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The Handbook of Texas Online<\/a>
\nTexas State Historical Association<\/a>
\n2012-01-21<\/p>\n

Jeffrey D. Dunn<\/strong><\/p>\n

James Lutzweiler<\/strong><\/p>\n

“The Yellow Rose of Texas,” one of the iconic songs of modern Texas<\/a> and a popular traditional American tune, has experienced several transformations of its lyrics and periodic revivals in popularity since its appearance in the 1850s. The earliest published lyrics to surface to date are found in Christy’s Plantation Melodies. No. 2<\/em>, a songbook published under the authority of Edwin P. Christy in Philadelphia in 1853. Christy was the founder of the blackface minstrel group known as the Christy’s Minstrels. Their shows were a popular form of American entertainment featuring white performers with burnt cork makeup portraying caricatures of blacks in comic acts, dances, and songs. The plaintive courtship-themed 1853 lyrics of “The Yellow Rose of Texas” fit the minstrel genre by depicting an African-American singer, who refers to himself as a “darkey,” longing to return to “a yellow girl,” a term used to describe a mulatto<\/a>, or mixed-race female born of African-American and white progenitors. The songbook does not identify the author or include a musical score to accompany the lyrics:<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a yellow girl in Texas
\nThat I’m going down to see;
\nNo other darkies know her,
\nNo darkey, only me;
\nShe cried so when I left her
\nThat it like to broke my heart,
\nAnd if I only find her,
\nWe never more will part.<\/em><\/p>\n

Chorus: She’s the sweetest girl of colour
\nThat this darkey ever knew;
\nHer eyes are bright as diamonds,
\nAnd sparkle like the dew.
\nYou may talk about your Dearest Mae,
\nAnd sing of Rosa Lee,
\nBut the yellow Rose of Texas
\nBeats the belles of Tennessee.<\/em><\/p>\n

Where the Rio Grande is flowing,
\nAnd the starry skies are bright,
\nOh, she walks along the river
\nIn the quiet summer night;
\nAnd she thinks if I remember
\nWhen we parted long ago,
\nI promised to come back again,
\nAnd not to leave her so.<\/em><\/p>\n

Chorus: She’s the sweetest girl of colour, &c<\/em><\/p>\n

Oh, I’m going now to find her,
\nFor my heart is full of woe,
\nAnd we’ll sing the songs together
\nThat we sang so long ago.
\nWe\u2019ll play the banjo gaily,
\nAnd we\u2019ll sing our sorrows o’er,
\nAnd the yellow Rose of Texas
\nShall be mine forever more.<\/em><\/p>\n

Chorus: She’s the sweetest girl of colour, &c.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

“Dearest Mae” and “Rosa Lee,” the only named females in the song, are the titles of two songs also appearing in Christy’s Minstrels songbooks. These songs were published earlier (1847\u201348) and are similar in style. Both are sung by a black man in a courtship setting with lyrics similar to those found in “The Yellow Rose of Texas.” Dearest Mae, who was from \u201cold Carolina state,\u201d was described as follows: \u201cHer eyes dey sparkle like de stars, Her lips are red as beet,\u201d and \u201cShe cried when boff [both] we parted.\u201d Rosa Lee lived in Tennessee and had \u201cEyes as dark as winter night, Lips as red as berry bright.\u201d<\/p>\n

…In 2011 Yale Divinity School Library archivist Joan Duffy<\/a> uncovered material indicating that the song\u2019s composer might have been John Kelly, a famous minstrel banjoist, comedian, and composer who took the stage name \u201cJ. K. Campbell\u201d in 1851 at the request of a fellow minstrel performer. According to Edward Le Roy Rice (1911), in 1859 and 1860 Campbell was working with George Christy\u2019s Minstrels at Niblo\u2019s Saloon in New York City under name of J. K. Edwards before changing his stage name back to J. K. Campbell. A minstrel \u201ccomic song\u201d composed circa 1861 by \u201cJ. K. Campbell,\u201d entitled \u201cHam Fat,\u201d is similar in style to \u201cThe Yellow Rose of Texas.\u201d One of the lines reads: \u201cYou may talk about your comfort, But Massa is the man…\u201d…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yellow Rose of Texas The Handbook of Texas Online Texas State Historical Association 2012-01-21 Jeffrey D. Dunn James Lutzweiler “The Yellow Rose of Texas,” one of the iconic songs of modern Texas and a popular traditional American tune, has experienced several transformations of its lyrics and periodic revivals in popularity since its appearance in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,459,1196,8,1249,20],"tags":[9373,9372,1392,20760,9371,9370],"class_list":["post-20145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-history","category-literary-criticism","category-media-archive","category-texas","category-usa","tag-james-lutzweiler","tag-jeffrey-d-dunn","tag-music","tag-texas","tag-texas-state-historical-association","tag-the-handbook-of-texas-online"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20145\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}