Fookin' Brill, Plus Clueless Among the Yellow Roses

[akirlu]

So my homeboy, The Apostropher pays off big time: "Hiernonymous Bosch Action Figures" he calls them. These little sculptures are fookin' brilliant. Though to be fair, the Dali got no flies on them either.


Conversely, Brad DeLong explains indirectly that I would know everything if I would just keep up with the open threads on Making Light like a responsible adult. You see, I had no idea about the original lyrics for The Yellow Rose of Texas either. (And, for the record, I too was an adult before I knew that it was anything other than "Catch a tiger by the toe," or what the nickname for Brazil nuts used to be. I'm not claiming there is any virtue in my ignorance, I just didn't know.)

Comments

[marykaykare.livejournal.com]

Well, I didn't know about the Yellow Rose of Texas but growing up in a southernish state in the 1950s I did know the other things.

MKK

[supergee.livejournal.com]

I learned about "The Yellow Rose of Texas" from Harry Warner jr., of all people.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

AKICIF

More Information

[chapbook.livejournal.com]

Furthermore, the stories about Emily West (Morgan) and General Santa Anna simpy don't make sense in a historical context, although they do make sense in an allegorical context where West = Judith and Santa Anna = Holofernes and Texas = Israel. [reference to anecdote by Retrogrouch over at the DeLong site that the "Yellow Rose" is a historical figure whose had an afair with Santa Anna]

I've not heard of any solid evidence to back up that anecdote. Since the original lyrics refer to "Dearest Mae" (http://levysheetmusic.mse.jhu.edu/cgi-bin/display.pl?record=020.140.000&pages=5) (1847) and "Rosalie" (http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=sm1820&fileName=sm2/sm1847/430000/430470/mussm430470.db&recNum=0&itemLink=D?mussm:7:./temp/~ammem_M0OQ::&linkText=0) (1847), two other heroines in songs made by blackface minstrels during the antebellum period, my gut feeling is that the lyricist was praising a fictitious character: "You think Tennessee girls are cute? The girls of Texas are far better!"

A site that has the original sheet music to "Yellow Rose of Texas": http://levysheetmusic.mse.jhu.edu/cgi-bin/display.pl?record=016.147.000&pages=5

"Yellow" girls are exotic objects of male desire in antebellum minstrelsy, whereas black women were primarily reserved for comedy. Female roles were primarily played by men in this period of minstrelsy, although women occasionally appeared as members in some troupes. Even more rare are all-female troupes during this period. For example, I've seen ads for the Female Serenaders in an Alexandria, VA, newspaper during the ACW. The implication in those ads was that the women were sex objects first, musicians/comedians/dancers second.

Blackface minstrelsy confronted issues of race, gender, and class and provides some fascinating insights into antebellum American society--both repellent and intriguing.

And for the record, when I was little I thought the "Yellow Rose" referred to a blond Texas girl. It was not until I began to study pop culture in 19th-century America that I learned otherwise.