Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys – "New San Antonio Rose" (1940)

Deep within my heart lies a melody

A song of old San Antone

One of the highlights of my recent trip to San Antonio to visit my sister were the breakfast tacos at a hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant in her neighborhood.

I overheard one of the friendly waitresses and a customer she addressed as “Mr. Jim” talking about the various jobs they had held while I was eating there one morning.  (Most of the customers must have been regulars because the waitresses called almost everyone who came in by name.) 

(Listen to Sean Bean!)

“I’ve been working in restaurants since I was 22,” the waitress told Mr. Joe.  

“Is that so?” he said.  “You know, I used to deliver Domino’s pizzas.”

“What do you do now?” she asked.

“I’m a realtor,” he replied.  “When I was getting started in real estate, I used to stick one of my business cards in each of the pizzas I delivered.  I got quite a few clients that way.”  

Really?  If you were looking for someone to help you sell your house, would you hire a guy who had to deliver pizzas to make ends meet?

*     *     *     *     *

In 1938, Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys had a #1 hit with a recording of a Western swing instrumental titled “San Antonio Rose.”

Shortly thereafter, Wills and his band added lyrics to the song and released it as “New San Antonio Rose.”  That recording also made it to #1.

Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys

If you don’t know the music of Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys, you are missing out.  “That’s What I Like ‘Bout the South,” “Ida Red,” “Roly Poly” and especially “Take Me Back to Tulsa” are just a few of their many great records.

Click here to listen to “New San Antonio Rose.”

Click here to buy that recording from Amazon.

Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys -- "New San Antonio Rose" (1940)

Deep within my heart lies a melody

A song of old San Antone

"New San Antonio Rose" was the signature song of Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys.

Bob Wills

The Texas Playboys are synonymous with Western swing -- an agglomeration of country-and-western, Dixieland-style jazz, "rowdy city blues" (a term Wills used to describe the music of Bessie Smith), and a few other musical styles -- which was usually played by a stringed band augmented with drums, a piano, and sometimes horns.  

Western swing is first and foremost dance music.  It swings, boys and girls -- in fact, it swings like nothing else ever did.

Wills recorded a Western-swing-meets-mariachi-music instrumental called "San Antonio Rose" in 1938.  Some of his band members wrote lyrics for the song, and it was retitled "New San Antonio Rose."  

The new version became a huge hit for the Texas Playboys in 1940, and an even bigger hit for Bing Crosby the following year.  It's been covered by a whole host of country-music superstars -- including Ernest Tubb, Patsy Cline, Ray Price, Willie Nelson, and Merle Haggard. 

I didn't see any roses on my trip to San Antonio earlier this summer, but I did see a lot of wildflowers as I walked and biked along the San Antonio River Walk (or Paseo del Rio).  

There were common sunflowers (Helianthis annuus) in great profusion:

Here's a closeup of one of those sunflowers:

There were Indian blankets, which are also called firewheels (Gaillardia pulchella):

Another closeup:

I saw the standing cypress, also known at the Texas plume (Ipomopsis rubra):

And I saw the pink evening primrose, which some call the Mexican evening primrose (Oenothera speciosa):

Last but not least, I saw the Texas lantana (Lantana urticoides):

Here's the original 1940 recording of "New San Antonio Rose":

C'mon now . . . everybody sing!

Click below to buy the song from Amazon: