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Some sources state that the original Yellow Rose was an indentured servant,
the "high yellow" Emily Morgan West, who, through either dalliance
or deceit caused General Santa Anna to lose the Battle of San Jacinto, the
decisive battle of the Texas Revolution on April 21, 1836. This bit of folk
history is unsubstantiated by any creditable source.
The earliest known version is found in Christy's Plantation Melodies. No. 2, a songbook published by Edwin Pearce Christy in Philadelphia in 1853. Christy was the founder of the Christy's Minstrels. In the minstrel version, the singer longs to return to "a yellow girl," a term used to describe a light-skinned bi-racial woman. After the Civil War, the words were modified to change the racial aspects. By the 1950's when Mitch Miller got hold of it, it had been sanitized into a cowboy song. The chorus is sung to the same melody as the verses. I learned the instrumental break from the Kretzner and Liebovitz on their Pigtown Fling album. I play this tune in medleys with:
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