Posted on 08/09/2006 7:42:28 AM PDT by MAD-AS-HELL
Which school has the best fight song? The debate has been raging for years and will continue to rage long after any of us are alive. The truth is that the context in which the song is played is often more important than the song itself. For example, you're sitting in Michigan Stadium watching your beloved Wolverines face Ohio State in a tight game. With a minute remaining and Michigan up by three, the Buckeyes are marching down the field and threatening to score when Leon Hall intercepts a Troy Smith pass and returns it for a touchdown, sealing the victory. At that point, the Michigan fighting band could play Livin' la Vida Loca and, as Morgan Freeman said in Shawshank Redemption, it would sound "so beautiful it can't be expressed in words, and makes your heart ache because of it. it would sound like the greatest piece of music you've ever heard." In other words, the emotions of a moment can cloud your objectivity. That's where we come in. After spending the past week hunkered down in the SIOC listening studio, we’ve poured through hundreds of fight songs and have come out with our Top 5. 1. "The Victors," University of Michigan 2. "Anchors Aweigh," U.S. Naval Academy 3. "Boomer Sooner," University of Oklahoma. 4. "Rocky Top," University of Tennessee 5. "Notre Dame Victory March," Notre Dame Those are ours. Take a listen and give us your Top 5.
(Excerpt) Read more at sportsillustrated.cnn.com ...
I will also put in a strong word for my alma mater's ditty, "The Iowa Fight Song." It was written by Meredith Willson, who went on to write "The Music Man."
Which means Iowa has the only fight song written by someone who also had a song recorded by The Beatles ("Till There Was You")
LOL! You beat me to it. You, sir or madam, have thoroughly wasted your youth reading Mad Magazine...
"Boomer Sooner above them is a crime. "
It might depend on which version of Boomer Sooner. There's the official version and the one most commonly sung that ends: "Rah Oklahoma, Rah Oklahoma, 3.2".
Another great thing about "On Wisconsin": in the singles version of the Beach Boys' "Be True To Your School," the guitar solo break is preceded by a couple quick bars of "On Wisconsin."
Technically, the fight song is "On McNeese", but they started playing Jolie Blonde instead about twenty years ago. I call it progress.
Hey, my son is transferring to USC from UF; heading out there on the 11th. He'll be living in the dorm. He's double majoring in aerospace eng & mech eng. Any words of wisdom for me to share with him? It's been over 30 yrs since I lived in Redondo. Guess I'm a little worried about him being so far away, and hoping that the campus is safe.
Now college men, from sea to sea
May sing of colors true
But who has better right than we
To hoist our symbol hue?
For sailor men, in battle fair
Since fighting days of old
Have proved the sailor's right to wear
The Navy blue and gold.
(always followed by a loud)
Beat Army!
Tell him to stay on campus. SC is surrounded by some of the worst neighborhoods in the country.
Other then that, its great.
Fight on.
I'm quite partial to the University of New Hampshire fight song, "On to Victory." It has quite a catchy tune. Go Cats!
The whole thing is part of the schizoid personality of the University of California - it's technically one university (all the degrees read "The Regents of the University of California, upon the nomination of the faculty at X") but each campus has its own personality and sports teams - all the colors are blue and gold, but different shades of blue are used. Only UC Berkely is known as "Cal" - the rest are known by the abbrviations of their cities (UCLA, UCSB, UCSC, UCSD, etc) or just by the city name (e.g. "Davis" "Riverside" Irvine").
Boomer Sooner sounds too much like "Shave and a Haircut, 2-bits," and Rocky Top is just not a serious fight song.
The greatest fans in college football would obviously have the greatest fight song. I'm guessing you folks from Michigan would enjoy hearing this one again....
Dear Old Nebraska U
(There is No Place Like Nebraska)
There is no place like Nebraska
Dear old Nebraska U.
Where the girls are the fairest,
The boys are the squarest,
Of any old school that I knew.
There is no place like Nebraska,
Where they're all true blue.
We'll all stick together,
In all kinds of weather,
For Dear old Nebraska U
followed by the repeated chant of "Go Big Red"
Just glad I could clear that up for all of you.
Have a great season!!
No I hadn't--sent the SI site off to Lizzie. Thanks...
Heck, I went to St. James Parochial School in Redondo Beach before we moved to Azusa.
Man . . . that takes me back to my pleber days, when we had to memorize all those chestnuts. All I can remember off the top of my head is "The goat is old and gnarly and he's never been to school . . ."
"Big C" is unquestionably the most famous and controversial Cal song. "Big C" was composed in 1913 by Harold P. Williams, with words by Norman Loyall McLaren. It was written to commemorate the creation of the large cement "C" built on the "rugged Eastern foothills" of the Berkeley campus in 1905, and the song was later entered in the Daily Californian's then annual school song competition. In the Fall of 1913, the competition was stiff, but the Rally Committee managed to narrow the field down to two songs, "Big C" and "Stanford Jonah." "Big C" took the prize with "Jonah" winning the next year.
The controversy surrounding the song has its roots in the "All University Weekend," an annual event which began around 1948 and lasted into the 1960's. This event was a double header football game that pitted Cal against UCLA and UC Davis against UC Santa Barbara. The games were played alternately in Berkeley one year and in Los Angeles the next year. Bands from all four of the schools would perform together in one giant, combined half-time show.
In one of the last "All U Weekends," F. Kelley James, then Associate Director of the UCLA Band and alumnus of the Cal Band wrote an arrangement of "Big C" for the combined half-time show. Afterwards, UCLA continued using his arrangement of "Big C," adding its own lyrics and renaming it "Sons of Westwood." The UCLA Band began playing it regularly as their new fight song. James Berdahl, then director of the Cal Band, was incensed over what he felt was a violation of the sanctity of Cal songs. A bitter exchange ensued between Berdahl and James for the next several years concerning the legal and ethical grounds under which "Big C" was appropriated. The matter came to a head in February 18, 1969, when Irwin Coster, working on behalf of the UCLA cause, received official word from the Copyright Office of the Library of Congress that "Big C" had never been copyrighted, and thus it was in the Public Domain. Public Domain status meant that only adaptations and arrangements of the song could be copyrighted, so UCLA had every legal right to "steal" the song. Some regents and UCLA administrators thought it quite reasonable that this "little sister" of Cal maintain "Sons of Westwood" as a "reaffirmation [of the University of California's] solidarity." However, ardent students and alumni at Cal were never happy with the situation, especially Berdahl, who continued to fight for the abolition of "Sons of Westwood" through the remainder of his tenure as director. Ironically, the nation at large recognizes "Sons of Westwood" as UCLA's fight song rather than Berkeley's as a result of their successful sports programs and extensive exposure on televised games, but that may be changing with the success of Cal Sports in the 21st century!
LOL!
I may never fully recover 8-(
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