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:
“If you meet a cross-eyed person
you must plunge into the grass,
alongside the chilly ants,
fish through the green fingernails
and come up with the four-leaf clover....”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“We grow tired of everything but turning others into ridicule, and congratulating ourselves on their defects.”
—William Hazlitt (1778–1830)
“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)