“The Yellow Rose of Texas” is a traditional folk song. The original love song has become associated with the legend of how an indentured servant named Emily D. West “helped win the battle of San Jacin to, the decisive battle in the Texas Revolution.”
The Center for American History at the University of Texas has an unpublished early handwritten version of the song, perhaps dating from the time of the Battle of San Jacinto in 1836. The author is unknown; the earliest published version, by Firth, Pond and Company of New York and dated September 2, 1858, identifies the composer and arranger as “J.K.”; its lyrics are “almost identical” to those in the handwritten manuscript, though it states it had been arranged and composed for the vaudeville performer Charles H. Brown.
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 thereof to Gene Autry and Jimmy Long. However, 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 was, coincidentally, the number one song in the U.S. the day one of the film’s stars, James Dean was killed.
Legendary accountThe song is based on a Texas legend from the days of the Texas War of Independence. According to the legend, a woman named Emily D. West (also known as “Emily Morgan”) — a mulatto, and hence, the song’s reference to her being “yellow” — who was seized by Mexican forces during the looting of Galveston seduced General Antonio López de Santa Anna, President of Mexico and commander of the Mexican forces. The legend credits her supposed seduction with lowering the guard of the Mexican army and facilitating the Texan victory in the Battle of San Jacinto waged in 1836 near present-day Houston. Santa Anna’s opponent was General Sam Houston, who won the battle literally in minutes, and with almost no casualties.
By Mitch Miller Orchestra
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uS5cPfbIjw
Lyrics
There`s a yellow rose in Texas that I am going to see, No other soldier knows her, no soldier only me; She cried so when I left her, it like to broke my heart And if I ever find her, we never more will part.
Chorus: She`s the sweetest rose of color this soldier ever knew, Her eyes are bright like diamonds, they sparkle like the dew You may talk about your dearest May and sing of Rosa Lee, But the Yellow Rose of Texas is the only girl for me.
When the Rio Grande is flowing, and the starry skies are bright She walks along the river in the quiet summer night She thinks if I remember, when we parted long ago, I promised to come back again and not to leave her so
Oh, now I`m going to find her, for my heart is full of woe And we`ll sing the song together, that we sang so long ago We`ll play the banjo gaily, and we`ll sing the songs of yore, And the Yellow Rose of Texas shall be mine forevermore.