T for Texas (Blue Yodel #1)

DESCRIPTION: "It's T for Texas, T for Tennessee (x2), It's T for Thelma, the gal who made a fool out of me." A lonely song for an unhappy man; he will buy a pistol and shoot the woman
AUTHOR: Jimmie Rodgers
EARLIEST DATE: c. 1928 (recording, Jimmie Rodgers)
KEYWORDS: floatingverses hardtimes homicide
FOUND IN: US(Ap,SE)
REFERENCES (4 citations):
Brown/Belden/Hudson-FrankCBrownCollectionNCFolklore3 339, "Leave for Texas, Leave for Tennessee" (2 texts)
Henry-SongsSungInTheSouthernAppalachians, pp. 71, "T for Texas, T for Tennessee" (1 text)
Lomax-FolkSongsOfNorthAmerica 152, "Mule Skinner Blues" (1 text, 1 tune, with one stanza of "T for Texas" thrown in at the end)
Greenway-FolkloreOfTheGreatWest, pp. 275-276, "(Blue Yodel #1 (T for Texas)" (1 text)
Roud #11743
RECORDINGS:
Jim Eanes, "Blue Yodel No. 1" (Rich-R-Tone 1058, n.d.)
NOTES [85 words]: Jimmie Rodgers is apparently responsible for this song in its present form, but he built it up largely from floating verses.
To add to the fun, the Lomaxes took a verse of this and tacked it on to another Rodgers piece, "Muleskinner Blues." Given that neither song has much of a plot, it can be hard to separate the resulting hybrids.
It will show how strong was the influence of Rodgers that the song was in tradition within five years (Brown's "a" text is from 1930, and Henry's from 1934 or earlier). - PJS, RBW
Last updated in version 6.6
File: LoF152A

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