A popular song from 1916.
Words by Ballard MacDonald.
Music by Al. Piantadosi.
The sheet music:
Accompaniment by James Pitt-Payne:
Lyrics
1. Watermelons never grew on huckleberry vines
You won’t find a snow bird
Nesting in the Southern climes
Where things grow they ought to be
Take them some place else and see
They fade away and pine and die
And that’s what’s wrong with me
CHORUS
Those Mississippi Days, and Mississippi ways
Those old plantation songs
While steamboats puffed, puffed along
Puffed along up the river
Mississippi nights, and Mississippi sights
Oh! how my heart is burning
Thoughts are turning, I’m yearning
How I miss those Mississippi days
2. Pick a rose and put it
On the parlor mantle shelf
It will only droop and die
The same case fits myself
When I can’t see friends I know
Places that my heart loves so
I’m like the rose that never grows
‘Cept where it’s s’posed to grow