Jimmie Rodgers in Texas cowboy outfit

T for Texas, T for Tennessee

Posted by

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes

I said T for Texas
T for Tennessee
Oh, yeah, I said T for Texas
T for Tennessee
Said, T for old Thelma
The gal who made a wreck out of me

Well, if you don’t want me momma
You sure don’t have to start
Ah, if you don’t want me momma
You sure don’t have to start
‘Cause I can get more women
Than a passenger train car

Yeah, I said T for Texas
T for Tennessee
Whoa, T for Texas
T for Tennessee
I said, T for old Thelma
The gal who made a wreck out of me

I’m gonna buy me a pistol
Just as long as I am tall
I’m going to buy me a pistol
Just as long as I am tall
I’m gonna shoot down old mean Thelma
Just to watch her jump and fall

I said T for Texas
T for Tennessee
I said T for Texas
T for Tennessee
T for old Thelma
The gal who made a wreck out of me

Gonna buy me a shotgun
With a great long shiny barrel, oh yeah
I’m gonna buy me a shotgun
With a great long shiny barrel
Gonna shoot down that rounder
That stole away my girl

I’m going where the water
Tastes like cherry wine
Yeah, I’m going where the water
Tastes like cherry wine
‘Cause the water down here in Georgia
Tastes like turpentine

I said T for Texas
T for Tennessee
Oh I said, T for Texas
T for Tennessee
I said T for old Thelma
The gal who made a wreck out of me
Oh yeah, women make a fool out of me

Country music king Jimmie Rodgers

Jimmie “The Singing Brakeman” Rodgers was born outside Meridian, MS, but he staked his claim to country music fame smack dab in the middle of Appalachia. In 1924 Rodgers started singing in traveling shows, vaudeville shows, medicine shows, and various other productions. Radio listeners in Asheville, NC heard his first performances in that medium in 1927, and he recorded his first songs in Bristol, VA.

Although he made records for only six years, between 1927 and his death at age 36 from tuberculosis in 1933, Rodgers recorded more than 100 songs. “T for Texas,” also known as “Blue Yodel No. 1,” became his signature tune and was the first of 13 tunes in his “Blue Yodel” series. Rodgers was the first inductee into the Country Music Hall Of Fame in 1961.

Jimmie Rodgers - T for Texas (1936)

Sources: www.geocities.com/ajsblue/country/country_b.html
mshistory.k12.ms.us/features/feature54/rodgers.htm

More articles on the birth of country music:

1927 Bristol Sessions –not the ‘Big Bang’ of country music? 1 of 2(Opens in a new browser tab)

The spiritualistic singing of the colored people worked over into the white hillbilly(Opens in a new browser tab)

Radio and the Blue Ridge(Opens in a new browser tab)

Leave a Reply