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:
“Love to chawnk green apples an’ go swimmin’ in the
lake.—
Hate to take the castor-ile they give for belly-ache!
‘Most all the time, the whole year round, there ain’t no flies on
me,
But jest ‘fore Christmas I’m as good as I kin be!”
—Eugene Field (1850–1895)
“Once Vogue showed two or three dresses for stout women, but we were so shaken by the experience we haven’t repeated it in fifty-seven years. Today ... we must acknowledge that a lady may grow mature, but she never grows fat.”
—Edna Woolman Chase (1877–1957)
“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)