A Great And Beloved Texas Song Wasn’t Written By A Texan
The song is loved by people around the world, most especially anyone from or in Texas. The authors, Don Swander and his wife June, weren't Texans though.
The song dates back to 1941 and was released less than a month before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, ushering the United States of America into Word War II. The songs popularity is partly because of the war.
As draftees and volunteers from Texas were scattered around the world, they brought the song along with them which helped introduce it to a much wider audience than it might otherwise have gotten.
According to composer Don Swander: "It was World War II which made it a hit," Swander said. "Those Texans go all over and raise hell. They wanted to hear the song." (lasvegassun.com)
Swander himself was born in Iowa and the song was recorded in Los Angeles.
His wife June, another non - Texan, wrote the lyrics. She was born in Los Angeles.
The composer from Iowa and his lyricist/wife from California also wrote a pretty well known song about Albuquerque, New Mexico. It was titled Ridin' Down the Trail to Albuquerque.
Not only were they not from Albuquerque, (or Texas either), the first band to record Ridin' Down The Trail To Albuquerque was a band from Oklahoma.
June did the lyrics for this one too, rhyming "jerky" with Albuquerque. Albuquerque is a hard word to rhyme anything with ...
I won't hold their non - Texan-ness against them.
It's still a nice song.
It also gets people to stop whatever they're doing to stomp and/or clap.