School Songs

[Amor de Cosmos]

I was at Allenye's Grammar School for only two years (before being "asked to leave.") After nearly fifty more however I can still remember the opening verse of the wretched school song:

"In fifteen hundred and fifty eight
ere Bess to the the throne ascended,
'What shall I do' said his reverence true
'for fame when my life is ended?'

Aaaaaa-Alleynes! Aaaaaaa-Alleynes!
Quoth the Reverend Thomas Alleyne.'

So come on, rake out your memories one and all...

[Reed John]

School Songs

About 90% of US high schools have an alma mater song that is to the same tune as Cornell's and their fight song is to the same tune as Wisconsin's "On Wisconsin." Our school had an original alma mater and our fight song was to the tune of the Naval Academy's "Anchor's Aweigh!"

State High Alma Mater

Dear to our hearts our Alma Mater
Noble and fair to view.
No other school will stand above you,
State College High so true.
Hail, all hail, to old State High!
Hail, Maroon and Gray!
To our Alma Mater fair,
We pledge all our lives for aye.

Circled by hills this Nittany Valley
Cradles our school so fine.
In this green vale that molds our spirits,
We hail her strength sublime.
Hail, all hail, to all her fame!
Hail, Maroon and Gray!
To our Alma Mater fair,
We pledge all our lives for aye

I can still remember how to play the baritone horn part to the fight song but I don't remember the lyrics and can't find them anywhere. We never sang it, just played it. I just recall the first bit - "March State High down the field, into to the fray! March for State High something something something rhymes with Maroon and Gray and something something ending with and We will bring the Bacon home today!!!"

Of course, Penn State has several great fight songs and alma mater, which I know but I didn't go to school there so...

William and Mary had a fight song but nobody sings it or knows the lyrics. We also have an Alma Mater that is to the same tune as Cornell's, so everyone hated that, but the chorus is good.

William and Mary loved of old,
Hark upon the gale,
Hear the thunder of our chorus,
Alma Mater hail!

"Hark Upon the Motherfucking Gale!!!" was always a good cheer to let out at a sporting event. What the hell is a gale?

Other than that, the only verse anyone (except the choir) can remember is verse 2, because of the odd image in the first line.

Iron shod or golden sandaled,
Shall the years go by,
Still our hearts shall weave about thee,
Love that cannot die.

The only really good tune we have is the William and Mary Hymn, sung at formal events, often by The College's excellent choir. But I don't know the words.

They are all here, however.

[blameless]

School Songs

A song? Christ, it took until I was in my last year for my school to have a badge, let alone a song.

If we'd had a song, it would have gone somethng like this:

In nineteen-seventy-one
An increase in the village's population
Caused Strathclyde District Council
To say "we need a primary school"
So they built one.

Aaaaaaa-meeeeeeeeennnnnnnnnnn

[Bruno]

School Songs

Northwestern's alma mater is to the tune of Brahms' Haydn Variations (itself based on an 18th century tune), which I always kinda liked.

[Amor de Cosmos]

School Songs

A song? Christ, it took until I was in my last year for my school to have a badge, let alone a song.

You mean your neighbourhood comprehensives don't have songs? What a glorious missed opportunity. Think of all those wannabe indie musicians whose creative juices could be stirred by writing one. Think of the cash flow ten years later when the local education authority issues them on a compilation CD.

[Alderman Barnes]

School Songs

Ooh, we had one. Hang on a minute...

Ahem...

All hail to the colours of dark and light blue
That float on the flag of our school
Where we one and all have a life's work to do
Beneath its benificent rule
Long, long may it flourish and tum-tum-te-dum
De-dum, tum-te-dum, rumpy-pum
La-da, da-da-da, da-da-da, da-da-da-aah-aah
The shrine of our studies in youth!

To be fair, we only sung it once or twice a year on special occasions. The music teacher thought it was rotten, but I thought it had quite a catchy tune.

On a related note, I can still recite the register.

[Amor de Cosmos]

School Songs

I can still recite the register.

Good grief!

I thought it had quite a catchy tune.

Yes, I think that's why I remember mine. Kinda rollicking, swashbuckling even. We only sang it a couple of times a year, on Founder's Day and Final Assembly I think, which means I must have heard it four times maximum.

[Amor de Cosmos]

School Songs

BTW, The line about "beneficent rule" is rather good I think.

[Reed John]

School Songs

Elementary (primary) schools don't (or at least in my day, didn't) engage in any sort of interscholastic competitions, so they didn't usually have a logo, nickname, mascot, song or any of that.

But I recall that when I was in about the 4th grade, all of the students got to vote on colors and a mascot for our school.

Shamefully, we voted for boring red and white and the woefully unoriginal "Panthers," because somebody thought it was alliterative with our school name, Radio Park Elementary School. I wanted blue and silver and "roughriders" to be our nickname. I also liked the possibility of being the Dinos because our school has a big green papermache sculpture of a friendly brontosaurus in the lobby, made by kids and the art teacher sometime in the early 1970s.

I recall that our art teacher drew the new panther logo, which looked like a panther in the same way that a pile of gravel looks like a panther, i.e., not at all, and printed up red t-shirts and sweatshirts which also looked pretty crap even by the standards of the day, but a lot of the teachers and a few of the students wore them on a special day designated for their wearing.

So I'm assuming there must have been a song, no-doubt written by our ancient battle-axe of a music teacher Mrs. Bengston. But I don't remember it.

[Amor de Cosmos]

School Songs

"Radio Park Elementary." Great name! You could really do something with that. It resonates like the old RKO logo: 30s, Norman Bel Geddes moderne; New York World's Fair; personal jet-packs; Popular Mechanix. They could have done something seriously cool.

[Reed John]

School Songs

I know!!! Totally blown opportunity. I'm angry just thinking about it. Now you see the sort of blinkered, non-creative minds I've had to struggle against all of my life.

It was called that because there had been a massive radio tower on that site at one point.

[Amor de Cosmos]

School Songs

It was called that because there had been a massive radio tower on that site at one point.

Well there you go. Local history as well. I can see the the lightning bolts flashing from the satinless steel pylon already. Waddya think metallic grey and dark blue, or is that too Dallas Cowboys?

[DCI Harry Batt]

School Songs

I can't decide if a school song is worse than a company song, or vice-versa.

[Amor de Cosmos]

School Songs

They're both pretty bad. I think company songs are worse though. I mean they're sung by grown-ups fer chrissake!

[JtS]

School Songs

I don't recall being taught the school song, but I remember my brother practising it.

Tant que je puis
Our motto shall be
As much as I can
Shall I

[Andy C]

School Songs

What the hell is a gale?

Is "gale" a word that isn't used in American English?

[Wyatt Earp]

School Songs

Ours would probably have been an adaptation of something out of Fiddler On The Roof, if we'd had one. "If I got four A-grades, biddy biddy biddy biddy biddy biddy biddy boom."

Reed, I only know what a "fight song" is (roughly) because of Tom Lehrer, so you might need to explicate? It's to do with American football, yes, rather than having bundles with the lads from the school down the road.

(Open goal. Or rather, receiver wide open.)

[The Exploding Vole]

School Songs

"Fight songs" go back a long way. I'm fairly sure they were originally a gridiron thing, sung at the game.

The University of Wisconsin "fight song" is an adaptation of the "state song"

On Wisconsin, on Wisconsin
Plunge right through that line
Run the ball clear down the field
A touchdown sure this time (U! Rah! Rah!)
On Wisconsin, On Wisconsin
Fight on for her fame
Fight, fellows, fight, fight, fight
We'll win this game

The "state song" (if I remember rightly) goes like this:

On Wisconsin, on Wisconsin
Grand old Badger State
We thy loyal sons and daughters
Hail thee good and great
On Wisconsin, on Wisconsin
Champion of the right*
"Forward" our motto
We will win the fight
*as opposed to the Right

Out of interest, do any school cheers or songs ("fight" or otherwise) still incorporate the phrase "Sis-boom-bah"?

[Wyatt Earp]

School Songs

In Paper Lion, it said that rookies at the Detroit Lions had to sing their college songs at dinner. I wondered what European or Aussie kickers would do. I wondered what I'd do, in the unlikely event etc.

I decided a medley of London and Newcastle classics would have fit the bill in my case: Any Old Iron and The Old Kent Road, and then into Blaydon Races, The Lambton Worm and Keep Your Feet Still Geordie Hinny. Because Cambridge doesn't have a song, as far as I know.

[Andy C]

School Songs

You might get away with the RCS chant, the Kangela.

[Wyatt Earp]

School Songs

Or I thought "My old man said be an Oxford fan, I said fuck off, bollocks, you're a cunt." Though my attempts to make that catch on never really took.

[Duncan Gardner]

School Songs

FFS, didn't any of you plebs learn Latin? Ours was so far up its own hole they translated the whole thing. Mind you, it's nicked from Eton. Half man half biscuit also do a version.

Floreat Collegium, Floreat Ultonia
Floreat Hibernia, it's been nice knowing ya

[Banana Banana]

School Songs

We didn't have a song but anyone passing the outdoor toilets on a cold and foggy Wednesday morning would have believed that this was the school anthem


The time has scarce gone by boys
Three hundred years ago
When Rebels on old Derry's Walls
Their faces dare not show
When James and all his rebel band
Came up to Bishops Gate
With heart and hand and sword and shield
We caused them to retreat.

The Cry was No Surrender
Surrender or you'll die! You'll Die
With heart and hand and sword and shield
We'll guard old Derry's Walls

[Banana Banana]

School Songs

A local gang (the Young Ruchill Boys) also painted a very large red hand on the school wall with YRB on the fingertips. Not quite the murals of Derry, but striking enough. However the effect was eliminated by someone superimposing a large brown shit on the hand.

[Duncan Gardner]

School Songs

Were you at Abronhill school Chippy?

(Setting for the Gregory's girl films)