Texana Thursday: 4 Things You Might Not Know about “The Eyes of Texas”

University of Texas President William Prather inspired the school song, “The Eyes of Texas” (University of Texas photo)

Texas-OU weekend is here, and among the pomp and circumstances of the football game is the playing of the University of Texas alma mater, “The Eyes of Texas.”

Here are some things you might not know about the song:

1. A university president coined the phrase.

William Prather served as university president from 1899-1905. He was a former student at Washington College (now Washington and Lee University), where he often heard that college’s president, Robert E. Lee, say that the eyes of the South were upon them. Prather took to telling his University of Texas students that the eyes of Texas were upon them.

2. The song was written as a humorous response to the president.

When you say something enough times, people tend to remember it. Enough people must have heard Prather’s admonition that in 1903 Lewis Johnson, a member of the university band, asked a classmate, John Sinclair, to write a song.

Using the tune of “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad” as his melody, Sinclair wrote:

The Eyes of Texas are upon you
All the live long day
The Eyes of Texas are upon you
You cannot get away
Do not think you can escape them
At night or early in the morn
The Eyes of Texas are upon you
Till Gabriel blows his horn

Prather’s family apparently liked the song so much, it requested that the song be played at Prather’s funeral in 1905.

3. The song is not the state song.

Sinclair wrote “The Eyes of Texas” in 1903. “Texas, Our Texas,” the official state song, was commissioned in 1924 and became the state song in 1929.

4. “The Eyes of Texas” was also the name of a popular regional television program.

KPRC-TV, the Houston NBC affiliate, for many years ran a program called “The Eyes of Texas” at 6:30 p.m. Saturdays. The show was a look at Texas events, people, and places.

Ray Miller, who was KPRC’s news director at the time, was the original host of the program. Later, longtime KPRC reporter and anchorman Ron Stone hosted the show.

Today KPRC occasionally airs an episode of “The Eyes of Texas,” with its current anchors, Bill Balleza and Dominique Sachse, as hosts.