Green Grow the Lilacs is a folk song of Irish origin that was popular in the United States during the mid-19th century.
The song title is familiar as the source of a folk etymology for the word gringo that states that the Mexicans misheard U.S. troops singing "green grow" during the Mexican-American War.
The song appears in the 1931 play of the same name by Lynn Riggs. Green Grow the Lilacs became the basis of the libretto for the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Oklahoma!.
The song appears in an LP album by Tony Kraber.
Read more about Green Grow The Lilacs: Versions
Famous quotes containing the words green, grow and/or lilacs:
“Simplicity of life, even the barest, is not a misery, but the very foundation of refinement; a sanded floor and whitewashed walls and the green trees, and flowery meads, and living waters outside; or a grimy palace amid the same with a regiment of housemaids always working to smear the dirt together so that it may be unnoticed; which, think you, is the most refined, the most fit for a gentleman of those two dwellings?”
—William Morris (1834–1896)
“Mine honor is my life, both grow in one,
Take honor from me, and my life is done.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“When lilacs last in the dooryard bloomed
And the great star early drooped in the western sky in the night,
I mourned, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.
Ever-returning spring, trinity sure to me you bring,
Lilac blooming perennial and drooping star in the west,
And thought of him I love.”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)