“My Castle on the Nile,” written in 1901, satirized the pretensions of newly rich industrialists who built big mansions in exclusive watering holes the song’s narrator’s roots ran much deeper, into Africa, where his castle was on the Nile. The lyrics were by his brother James Weldon Johnson, a prominent poet and eventually executive secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and Bob Cole. Rosamond Johnson, better known as the composer of “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” often called the “Negro National Anthem” he would go on to become a major figure in the Harlem Renaissance. “My Castle on the Nile” was sung by one of the “Bones” characters, yet it was composed by J. If, on the morning after a football game, Congress Avenue resembled the wake of a tornado and the front page of the Austin Statesman was filled with references to ‘hoodlums’ and ‘police,’ the legislature would not understand that Thomas Watt Gregory himself had authorized us to ‘go down and bust Congress Avenue wide open.’ ”Īnother song performed that night offers an outright ironic example of the moral confusion of that time. “It should be explained that in those days, before the University struck oil, and before the millennium had arrived when the legislature should be composed entirely of University graduates who would pass appropriation bills without a dissenting vote, the conduct of the student body had an immediate relation to the actual budget. Though others, like Jim Cannon, a member of the Varsity Quartette who first sung “The Eyes” at the Varsity minstrel would describe the performance as a “joke,” poking fun at the president for how much he used the phrase, for John Lang Sinclair, it was an earnest endorsement of Prather’s admonition to his students.
Sinclair was clear that his words were in absolute support of President Prather’s admonition to his students and the reality of how their conduct had a direct reflection on the fledgling university, especially with legislators and local media.
It also recognizes that students will be students including at night – and cautions them that, while having fun, “the eyes” remain a measure of accountability for all. Is a direct statement to the student body (overwhelmingly white at that time) that the elders of the state and the previous generation are watching them and expecting them to do great things with their education. The original lyrics of The Eyes of Texas, written on brown paper from Bosche’s Laundry. Lee and was instead a message of encouragement and accountability to the students and faculty at the then fledgling university. In the earliest example, the Book of Job declares, “For His eyes are on the ways of a man, and He sees his every step.” Other uses of the line include President George Washington saying “the eyes of the nation are upon you.” Based on the evidence, the committee concluded that there was a very low likelihood that the line originated with Robert E. What is more, research failed to discover in the records of Washington & Lee University (as Washington College is now called) evidence that Lee * ever closed an address to the students with the phrase attributed to him by the Taylor account.įinally on this point, the committee noted numerous examples of the formulation “the eyes of _ are upon you” around the world and long predating 1903. Most likely Taylor, writing nearly four decades after these events, simply misremembered. The committee’s research revealed multiple errors in Taylor’s remembrance.
Taylor in his memoir Fifty Years on Forty Acres. The oft-repeated claims that Lee was the inspiration all seem to trace back to a 1938 account by retired engineering dean T. Lee was clearly a beloved figure to Prather, but no primary source has been found connecting the phrase to Lee. Lee, who was thought to have often said “the eyes of the South are upon you” as president of Washington College after the Civil War, where Prather had studied. Many accounts over the years have stated that the saying “The eyes of Texas are upon you” was inspired by Confederate Gen. John Lang Sinclair and the lyrics of “The Eyes of Texas.”
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