The Yellow Rose of Texas (song)

"The Yellow Rose of Texas" is a traditional American folk song dating back to at least the 1850s. Members of the Western Writers of America chose it as one of the Top 100 Western songs of all time. Several versions of the song have been recorded, including by Elvis Presley, Willie Nelson 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. 
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. 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.Billboard Year-End Hot 100 singles of 1955
==Lyrics==
Earliest known version, from Christy's Plantation Melodies. No. 2:
The "Dearest Mae" and "Rosa Lee" referenced in the song are the titles of two other songs also appearing in Christy's Minstrels songbooks.
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 ..."
"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.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. p. 306. 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)
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.Walker, Gary C. The War in Southwest Virginia 1861-65. A&W Enterprise 1985. p. 130.
In this version of the chorus, "soldier" replaced "darkey." The same substitution is made throughout the song.
==Popular hit==
In September 1955, for six weeks, Mitch Miller had a Billboard number one hit with "The Yellow Rose of Texas", 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. The 1955 song became a gold record. The song achieved the #2 position in the UK and the #1 position in Australia.
==Other versions==
* Bing Crosby recorded the song in 1955 for use on his radio show and it was subsequently included in the CD So Rare: Treasures from the Crosby Archive (2010). 
* Gene Autry & Jimmy Long - recorded for Melotone Records on March 1, 1933, catalog No. 12700.
* Mantovani (1959)
* Michael Holliday - a single release in 1955.
* Pat Boone (1961)
* Ronnie Hilton - this reached the No. 15 spot in the UK charts in 1955. 
* Roy Rogers (1942)
==Nursery rhyme==
There is also a children’s text, following the same tune, with different lyrics:
=="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.
==In literature==
The Yellow Rose of Texas is discussed in the 2017 novel Never Split Tens by Les Golden of Oak Park, Illinois, published by Springer Nature.
==See also==
* High yellow
* Emily D. West
* The Yellow Rose 
==References==
==External links==
*MP3 file at Yellow Rose of Texas from amaranthpublishing.com
*MIDI file and lyrics from Songs of Texas at Lone Star Junction: A Texas and Texas History Resource
Category:American folk songs
Category:Western music (North America)
Category:Number-one singles in Australia
Category:Number-one singles in the United States
Category:Songs of the American Civil War
Category:1955 singles
Category:Texas culture
Category:Songs about Texas
Category:Ernest Tubb songs
Category:1958 songs
Category:Elvis Presley songs