Song lyrics to “The Yellow Rose of Texas” (1853)
“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. Like many older songs, the lyrics have been changed and modified many times.
There’s a yellow rose of Texas
I’m goin’ there to see
No other feller knows her
Nobody, only me.
She cried so when I left her
It like to broke my heart
And if we ever meet again
We never more will part
She’s the sweetest rose of color
A cowboy ever knew
Her eyes are bright as diamonds
They sparkle like the dew.
You may talk about your dearest May
And sing of Rosa Lee
But the Yellow Rose of Texas
Beats the belles of Tennessee.
Where the Rio Grande is flowin’
And the stars are shinin’ bright
We walked along the river
On a bright summer night
She said, if you remember
We parted long ago,
You promised to come back again
And never let me go
She’s the sweetest rose of color
A cowboy ever knew
Her eyes are bright as diamonds
They sparkle like the dew.
You may talk about your dearest May
And sing of Rosa Lee
But the Yellow Rose of Texas
Beats the belles of Tennessee.
I’m goin’ back to find her,
My heart is full of woe,
We’ll sing the songs together
We sang so long ago,
I’ll fix the banjo gayly
And sing of long ago,
And the Yellow Rose of Texas,
Is to be mine forevermore.
She’s the sweetest rose of color
A cowboy ever knew
Her eyes are bright as diamonds
They sparkle like the dew.
You may talk about your dearest May
And sing of Rosa Lee
But the Yellow Rose of Texas
Beats the belles of Tennessee
Notes
- 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.
- 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. 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:
