Did you know your school song?

In My Humble Opinion
41

Hmm, let’s see. My high school fight song:

Chillicothe, fight the foe,
[3 lines I don’t remember]

[2 more lines I don’t remember]
O Chillicothe, fairest school to me,
We praise thee to the sky!

OK, maybe I’ll do better with the alma mater:

'Mid the hills of old Ohio,
Where the valley smiling lies,
With the placid, still Scioto
'Neath the blue of summer skies,

[2 lines I don’t remember]
Chillicothe, fair in glory,
Guards the peerless blue and white.

The trouble with trying to remember the alma mater is that its tune fits perfectly with the old Oscar Mayer jingle: My baloney has a first name, it’s O-S-C-A-R etc.

42

Ooooh, I still remember mine. All three verses. I even remember the clarinet part.

We sang it at speech night every year with full orchestra and organ, and of course, a trumpet voluntry… It was the honour of the music captain to conduct the whole school and orchestra.

We also sang it several times during the year in assembly (which was held every morning), with just organ accomaniment.

Who knows the swell of the clamourours bell,
As it bids us work each day
Who knows the ring of its joyous swing
As it sets us free to play
Answering all to the well known call
Now and in days to be
Ready of brain
'Midst the toil and strain
Girls of the school are we

[chorus]
Through the work and the play of our every day
The course appointed we hold
For the honour and fame of the grand old name,
The Blue! The Black! and the Gold!

Who knows the thrill that has held us still
When the play is getting fast
'Till 'neath the strain we can breathe again
As the ball goes whizzing past
We guard the rule of the mother school
Courage that never flags
Faith for our day in the game we play,
Woe to the one that lags!

[Chorus]

We take the load and we tread the road
Of the girls who went before
We guard the fame of the grand old name
May we guard and love it more
Strong 'midst the strife and the play of life
Steadfast to serve the weak
Ready of brain midst the toil and strain
This is the end we seek

[Chorus]

43

High school (sung to the tune of On Wisconsin):

On Durand boys, on Durand boys,
Show a little speed!
Send the ball right past the guardsmen,
Pep is what we need. (U Rah Rah!)

On Durand boys, on Durand boys,
Victory is fame!
Fight, fellows, fight, fight, fight
To win this game.

I think they’ve changed it now - some PC people got all up in arms about the “boys” and “fellows,” which we usually changed to “girls” and “ladies” as the situation warranted automatically, without thinking about it. But there you are.

Sadly, I graduated from the University of Wisconsin, and don’t know the proper lyrics to On Wisconsin. Bad alumna! Bad! I can give you the unofficial school song, however. You’ll hear it after every game.

Varsity, Varsity,
U Rah Rah Wisconsin.
Hail to thee we sing (We Sing!)
Hail to thee our alma mater.
U Rah Rah Wisconsin.

Go Badgers!

44

I found out something interesting about “On Wisconsin” when I was confirming that I had the right lyrics to the Minnesota Rouser. The Rouser, written by Floyd M. Hutsell, was the winner of a fight song contest. However…

“Minnesota, Minnesota”…hmmm, it does make sense! :slight_smile:

45

Well, I remember this one:

Of course this is a parody of the official song - but no one I’d ever met at Cornell knew those lyrics.

46

Of course you did, dear…there’s nothing else to do there!

Howdy neighbor!!

47

Oh, the painful memories this thread brings back!

My high school song (which we sang as a school every year at convocation) was a hymn called Fair Waved the Golden Corn. Imagine 250 girls from grades 7 to 11 inclusive (having practised for 5 minutes before once a year) singing to an auditorium of teachers, parents and fellow students, to the accompaniment of an indifferent pianist:

Fair waved the golden corn,
In Canaan’s pleasant land,
When full of joy, some shining morn,
Went forth the reaper band.

To God so good and great
Their cheerful thanks they pour
Then carry to His temple gate
The choicest of their store.

Like Israel, Lord, we give
Our earliest fruits to Thee,
And pray that, long as we shall live,
We may Thy children be.

Thine is our youthful prime,
And life and all its powers,
Be with us in our morning time,
And bless our evening hours.

[CENTER]Fair waved the golden corn,
In Canaan’s pleasant land,
When full of joy, some shining morn,
Went forth the reaper band.

For those of you that know the hymm, you will realize that they sort of secularized it by taking out the following last verse:

In wisdom let us grow,
As years and strength are given,
That we may serve Thy Church below,
And join Thy saints in Heaven.

Now I won’t be able to get this song out of my head for a while … ow!

48

From reading other’s they’re all pretty similar
Oh Harbor School, our Harbor School
We sing thy praises clear.
With gentle rules
and loving care
you mold our growing years.

Though we may pass
and be forgot,
our thoughts will always be.
With Harbor School, our Harbor Schooooool
We lift are hearts to thee.Quoted the entire lyrics - but the mods shouldn’t fret…the place was bulldozed years ago.

49

I don’t think we had a school song, but Cecil Alexander lived in a listed part of our school building, she may have lived there when she composed the hymm “All things bright and beautiful.” :slight_smile:

50

I give my promise to be true
To Jesus Christ my King…

Those are the only two lines I know. Written by some guy named Oswald J. Smith.

51

My High School was not called Notre Dame, but it did use the ND mascot and fight song.

And *not *knowing the words to the fight song was liable to get you in really hot water with the seniors, especially during Homecoming week.

Just a couple of years ago, the principal of the school developed an extremely agressive type of cancer and died within a few months of the diagnosis. At the end of the funeral mass, some of the students and alumni spontaneously started singing the fight song at a slow tempo. It was one of the most beautiful moments I’ve ever witnessed.

52

Dear old Abilene High
Grand old Abilene High
Champion of allll the rrresssst!
Loyal just to yoooo;
we’re faithful and true blooo;
we always will uphold you
aaaasss…the…best!
School of Eagle fame;
wiiiinnnners of the game
fight right on to viiiic-tor-rrrrry!
Fight right to the end
and when you’ve won it, then
THREE CHEEEERS FOR GRAND OLD ABILENE HIIIIIIIIIIIGGGH!

53

[Note to mods: this song is not in copyright]

Forty years on, when afar and asunder
Parted are those who are singing today,
When you look back, and forgetfully wonder
What you were like in your work and your play,
Then, it may be, there will often come o’er you,
Glimpses of notes like the catch of a song -
Visions of boyhood shall float them before you,
Echoes of dreamland shall bear them along,

Chorus
Follow up! Follow up! Follow up! Follow up! Follow up!
Till the field ring again and again,
With the tramp of the twenty-two men.
Follow up! Follow up!

Routs and discomfitures, rushes and rallies,
Bases attempted, and rescued, and won,
Strife without anger, and art without malice, -
How will it seem to you, forty years on?
Then, you will say, not a feverish minute
Strained the weak heart and the wavering knee,
Never the battle raged hottest, but in it,
Neither the last nor the faintest, were we!

Chorus

O the great days, in the distance enchanted,
Days of fresh air, in the rain and the sun,
How we rejoiced as we struggled and panted -
Hardly believable, forty years on!
How we discoursed of them, one with another,
Auguring triumph, or balancing fate,
Loved the ally with the heart of a brother,
Hated the foe with a playing at hate!

Chorus

Forty years on, growing older and older,
Shorter in wind, as in memory long,
Feeble of foot, and rheumatic of shoulder,
What will it help you that once you were strong?
God give us bases to guard or beleaguer,
Games to play out, whether earnest or fun;
Fights for the fearless, and goals for the eager,
Twenty, and thirty, and forty years on!

The Harrow School version has an extra verse in honour of Sir Winston Churchill which I assume is copyrighted and so will not quote here.

54

Just saw this thread for the first time. Yes! I do remember my school song, for Topeka West High School.

*North, south, east or to where 'er we roam
West will remain dear to our hearts.
For West will always be our cherished home,
Even though we soon must part.

Chorus:

West, we honor you,
West, we will be true
Always faithful we will be to thee,
West, Topeka West.

Royal purple is for majesty
We wear it proudly as we go
And White shows truth and our sincerity
In the friendships that we know*
Chorus

55

San Gabriel High School, San Gabriel, California, Class of 1961

Thy Stately halls, dear Alma Mater
Rise proudly in the golden West,
Inspiring all thy sons with courage
To meet each challenge and each test.
To thine ideals we shall be faithful, Our loyalty will never die.
We lift our voices now in tribute
To thee, San Gabriel High!

I haven’t thought of that in more than forty years. We used to sing it at assemblies and football games. There was a fight song, too, but I didn’t sing it because I played it on trumpet in the band. I don’t remember the lyrics to that.

What a bunch of glurge that was. I’d be surprised if the kids going there now even know there is a school song. The place’s “stately walls” are now enclcosed in high fencing and bars, and are covered with grafitti. I read recently that the school hasn’t “met challenges and tests” too well, either. They are now ranked one of the lowest in California. High school ain’t (excuse me, Mrs. Dobis . . . isn’t) what it used to be! But, what the hey . . . GO MATADORS!

56

Far as I know, my high school didn’t have a song. If it did, I never heard it.

College I know. There’s a tradition at Brown that during the annual Campus Dance, held every graduation/reunion/Memorial Day weekend, everyone sings the alma mater at midnight, on the steps of Sayles Hall. However, no one knows the words. Well, during my senior year, my friend Brie and I somehow got hold of a tape of the song, so we learned it. And, of course, sang it at the appropriate time.

Alma Mater, we hail thee with loyal devotion,
And bring to thine altar our offering of praise.
Our hearts swell within us with joyful emotion,
As the name of old Brown in loud chorus we raise.
The happiest moments of youth’s fleeting hours,
We’ve passed 'neath the shade of these time-honored walls.
And sorrows as transient as April’s brief showers,
Have clouded our life In Brunonia’s halls.

Everyone knew the fight song, though. If not the real version (which I can’t remember, exactly) then the unofficial one:

We are ever true to Brown,
For we love our college dear.
And wherever we may go,
We are ready with a beer.
And the people always say,
That you can’t out drink Brown men (and women!)
With a scotch and rye and a whiskey dry,
And a B-O-U-R-B-O-N!

57

I don’t think my high school had a song. Hm. I was in the marching band, though, and when the football team scored a touchdown, we played the University of Southern California fight song, “Fight On”. But no one sang along or anything. It was very odd, since this was in Northern California - couldn’t we have appropriated the fight song from Berkeley or Stanford? I think I could probably still play “Fight On” on my piccolo.

College. I am sure we did not have a song. It’s possible that the University of California has a song that all the campuses share, I suppose, but UC Santa Cruz doesn’t have a song. Where the heck would we sing it? We don’t even have a football team. Maybe on the way to drum circles in Crown Meadow or before a rousing game of ultimate frisbee?

58

I went to Victoria College, an all-girls school in Belfast.

We had an awful, dirge-like song which started
“This school Victoria, we pledge to you
Our faithful hearts in all we try to do,”
And usually progressed to a lot of mumbling.

When they were feeling particularly lively, we sang the Women’s Auxiliary Hymn instead.

59

My high school had an odd fight song, in that there were no references to the name of the school. Must’ve bought it from Generic Fight Songs ‘r’ Us:

The Red and gold
Are in the air
and overhead, the banners flare.
For the honor of our school…
Victory’s in sight, fight with all your might
And when the team is on the field
The other team will have to yield.
Roll up that score we want some more
For the honor of the Red and Gold.

College had dozens of songs…one of which was a University Alma Mater which we probably shared with Santa Cruz, kyla. The official fight song was thusly:

*Our sturdy golden bear
Is watching from the skies
Looks down upon our colors fair
And guards us from his laaaaaair
Our colors gold and blue
The symbol on them too
Mean FIGHT for Cal-i-for-ni-a
For California through and through!
*

60

When I was a senior, someone decided our high school needed a true “anthem” instead of the fight song (really more like an extended cheer) that we had used for the previous 22 years. The band director and guidance counselor sat down and wrote an original song.

They weren’t exactly Rogers and Hammerstein and the result was a dirge-tempo melody with lame lyrics that didn’t quite fit the meter.

Mercy, let’s all give a cheer.
Mercy, sing loud and clear.
Your spirit’s first-rate, your teams are just great"

And so it went for a couple of more stanzas. We seniors considered it one more indignity (about on a level with having to register for the draft when we turned 18) that spoiled what we had been promised would be the best year of our lives.

They played it at graduation, but I don’t think anyone sang along.