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:
“The gentle serpent, green in the mulberry bush,
Riots with his tongue through the hush—
Sentinel of the grave who counts us all!”
—Allen Tate (1899–1979)
“In my experience, persons, when they are made the subject of conversation, though with a Friend, are commonly the most prosaic and trivial of facts. The universe seems bankrupt as soon as we begin to discuss the character of individuals. Our discourse all runs to slander, and our limits grow narrower as we advance. How is it that we are impelled to treat our old Friends so ill when we obtain new ones?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“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)