Lily of Laguna is a song

Song

In music, a song is a composition for voice or voices, performed by singing.A song may be accompanied by musical instruments, or it may be unaccompanied, as in the case of a cappella songs...

 written in 1898 by Leslie Stuart

Leslie Stuart

Leslie Stuart was an English composer of early musical theatre, best known for the hit show Florodora and many popular songs. Stuart began writing songs in the late 1870s, including songs for blackface performers, such as "Lily of Laguna"; songs for musical theatre; and ballads such as "Soldiers...

 and performed by Eugene Stratton

Eugene Stratton

Eugene Augustus Rühlmann was born in Buffalo, New York. He adopted the stage name Eugene Stratton, and became an American-born dancer and singer, whose career was mostly spent in British Music halls.- Biography :...

 and G. H. Elliott

G. H. Elliott

G. H. Elliott was a British music hall singer and dancer. He was born George Henry Elliott in Rochdale, Lancashire in 1882Known as the "Chocolate Coloured Coon", he came on stage with a painted black face but dressed entirely in white...

. The Carlton Football Club

Carlton Football Club

The Carlton Football Club is a professional Australian rules football club based in Melbourne, Victoria. The club competes in the Australian Football League, and was one of the eight founding members of that competition in 1897...

's official theme, We Are The Navy Blues is based on the tune. As with many of the songs written at the time, the original "Lily of Laguna" contains lyrics that are racially charged.

The song first performed in Oxford

Oxford

The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...

 in July 1898, and first reviewed in the Entr'acte on July 23, 1898. Laguna of the original song was a village of Native American

Indigenous peoples of the Americas

The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...

 cave-dwellers somewhere "100 miles off the main line en route to California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

 proceeding from New Orleans." Lily was a cave-dwelling Indian girl. The song stood aside from Stuart's other works, in part because Stuart wrote both the music and the verses. Stuart wrote that "I wrote the words and music together to a large degree and, consequently, I was able to get effects that the canons of art lay down as being impossible... Instead of ending where, say, the average poet would compel me by the metre of his verse I, writing my own lyrics, add two bars more and get an entirely new effect". The song was regularly played throughout the rest of Stuart's life, although not as frequently as less demanding compositions. On the night of Stuart's death, March 26, 1928, it was performed by Herman Darewski

Herman Darewski

Herman Darewski was a British composer and conductor of light music. His most successful work was perhaps The Better 'Ole, which ran for over 800 performances in its original London production in 1917...

 band at the Coliseum Theatre

Coliseum Theatre

The London Coliseum is an opera house and major performing venue on St. Martin's Lane, central London. It is one of London's largest and best equipped theatres and opened in 1904, designed by theatrical architect Frank Matcham , for impresario Oswald Stoll...

, with Queen Soraya of Afghanistan

Soraya Tarzi

Soraya Tarzi, known mostly as Queen Soraya, was the Queen of Afghanistan in the early 20th century and the wife of King Amanullah Khan. She is the only woman to appear on the list of rulers in Afghanistan, although wife of King Amanullah Khan...

 in attendance.

The song was ordered to be played over the air from the pre-American Forces Network facilities in London during World War Two at a precise time, say 1307 hours, 1:07 p.m. for those non-military. No doubt, the tune was a signal to the French underground or some other group in German-held territory.

Bing Crosby and Mary Martin performed a stripped down cutesy version of this song which is primarily based on the chorus of the original song, i.e., "She's my lady love". In the 1960s the song was performed by a British blackface

Blackface

Blackface is a form of theatrical makeup used in minstrel shows, and later vaudeville, in which performers create a stereotyped caricature of a black person. The practice gained popularity during the 19th century and contributed to the proliferation of stereotypes such as the "happy-go-lucky darky...

 group on The Black and White Minstrel Show

The Black and White Minstrel Show

The Black and White Minstrel Show was a British light entertainment show that ran on BBC television from 1958-1978 and was a popular stage show. It was a weekly light entertainment and variety show presenting traditional American minstrel and Country songs, as well as show and music hall numbers,...

. Afterwards, political correctness

Political correctness

Political correctness is a term which denotes language, ideas, policies, and behavior seen as seeking to minimize social and institutional offense in occupational, gender, racial, cultural, sexual orientation, certain other religions, beliefs or ideologies, disability, and age-related contexts,...

made this genre and the lyrics of the song unacceptable for public broadcasting. The song was transformed in a number of ways: the racial imagery was replaced with lines referencing sailor hats, docks, and lollipops; the entire verse sections which, in the original, contains the dramatic mood shift of iii minor, to ii minor, to I Major; the arrangement was updated to the jazzy big band sound that was popular at the time; and a woman (Mary Martin) now sang lyrics from the female perspective.