School Songs

[The Exploding Vole]

School Songs

Not a school song as such, but a good college chant:

Secant, cosine, tangent, sine
3.14159
Pi! Pi! Radical Mu!
Beat 'em, beat 'em, MTU!

There's also this:

Voltage times capacitance!
Charge! Charge!
Voltage times capacitance!
Charge! Charge!
Force per unit area!
Pressure! Pressure!
Force per unit area!
Pressure! Pressure!
Emulsify them, emulsify them!
Turn them into a homogeneous mixture!
Magnetize them, magetize them!
Really flux them over!

[Banana Banana]

School Songs

No

We'd moved back to Glasgow by that point and I was at North Kelvinside, which has no claim to film fame other than the church at the bottom of the school was converted into the pub that had the scene from Trainspotting where Begbie threw a pint into a crowd to start a fight.

The school has now been demolished, Red Hand and all.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

School Songs

My school even went as far as having a chorus in Latin, which I remember to this day. Quite why, I'm not really sure - the Romans came to Devon, sure enough, but only stayed long enough to enjoy the weather and hold toga parties on the beaches while they were raping the local women and crucifying the men.

Still, my school's refrain was (as I recall it, sorry for spelling)

Schola Kyrtonensis! Flos Devoniensis!
Nunc et Semper Floreat,
Schola Kyrtonensis!

[Brandenburger Toro]

School Songs

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

A strong wind, round about a seven upwards on the Beaufort scale.

[Reed John]

School Songs

I know what that kind of gale is, but I thought it must mean something else because I don't know why one would hark upon a strong wind. Besides, the winds aren't especially strong in Williamsburg.

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.

Football, usually, but they are played (by a band) or sung at various sporting events. The idea is that they are up-tempo and rousing. Penn State's "fight song" (the main one, anyway) is called "Fight On, State!"

Lots of pundits will tell you Michigan and Notre Dame have the best fight songs, but that's bullshit. Their's are actually irritating and become nasty earworms.

While I'm partial to Penn State's songs, because that's my team. Minnesota's "Rouser" is really good. Especially if you're at a hockey game and get to do the M-I-N-N-E-S-O-T-A part after every goal. It also includes a variation on the bit Exploding Vole is looking for.

Minnesota, hats off to thee!
To thy colors true we shall ever be,
Firm and strong, united are we.
Rah, rah, rah, for Ski-U-Mah,
Rah! Rah! Rah! Rah!
Rah for the U of M.
[Repeat]

M-I-N-N-E-S-O-T-A!
Minnesota, Minnesota!
Yay, Gophers!

The Alma Mater is a slower, hymn-like sentimental song that usually references the natural setting of the school and how it has molded the students into men (and women, but usually when they were written, it was just men).

Penn State's alma mater is especially good. It sounds nice when 100,000 people sing it. I get goosebumps.

For the glory of old State,
For her founders strong and great,
For the future that we wait,
Raise the song, raise the song.

Sing our love and loyalty,
Sing our hopes that, bright and free,
Rest, O Mother dear, with thee,
All with thee, all with thee.

(Softly)

When we stood at childhood's gate,
Shapeless in the hands of fate,
Thou didst mold us, dear old State,
Dear old State, dear old State.

(Louder)

May no act of ours bring shame
To one heart that loves thy name,
May our lives but swell thy fame,
Dear old State, dear old State.

[Brandenburger Toro]

School Songs

The wind of their tempestuous fury. Pathetic fallacy, innit?

[Incandenza]

School Songs

UCLA's alma mater is short and sweet:

Hail to the hills of Westwood,
To the mighty sea below;
Hail to our Alma Mater,
She will conquer every foe.

For we’re loyal to the Southland,
Her honor we’ll uphold;
We’ll gladly give our hearts to thee,
To the Blue and to the Gold.

The song that gets played the most at football games is "Mighty Bruins," but it's just really the band playing the music. The football team sings it in the locker room after victories (the local Fox Sports station has a breakdown of every game, and they have cameras inside the locker room, they usually show this):

We are the Mighty Bruins,
The best team in the West.
We’re marching on to victory,
To conquer all the rest.

We are the Mighty Bruins,
Triumphant evermore.
You can hear from far and near,
The Mighty Bruin roar!

U! (3 claps)
C! (3 claps)
L! (3 claps)
A! (3 claps)

U-C-L-A! Fight! Fight! Fight!

More than a song, the 8-clap is the most cherished UCLA tradition, I'd say. The 8-clap is the last bit of the song above, but started out with people raising their hands, then clapping 8 times, then going into the U-C-L-A bits. The "fight! fight! fight!" at the end can easily be replaced by "Fuck SC!".

[professor van nostrum]

School Songs

The Notre Dame fight song sounds like "I'm Popeye the sailor man"

[Andy C]

School Songs

Poetically one listens to soft words carried on a breeze, so why not fightin' talk on a gale?

[Guest]

School Songs

"Fight on, Fight on, dear old Muncie
Fight on, Hoist the gold and blue
You'll be tattered, torn and hurting
Once the Munce is done with you.

Go Eagles!"

[Wyatt Earp]

School Songs

Tom Lehrer does an Alma Mater parody as well, doesn't he? "Bright College Days". With the highly memorable couplet

Soon we'll be out, amid the cold world's strife,
Soon we'll be sliding down the razor blade of life.

[Ginger Yellow]

School Songs

My school didn't have a song as far as I can recall, but there was one hymn that was sung maybe once or twice a term that was adopted by College as a sort of unofficial anthem, with certain words ritually shouted rather than sung.

O quanta, qualia sunt illa sabbata
quae semper celebrat superna curia.
quae fessis requies, quae merces fortibus,
cum erit omnia Deus in omnibus.

vere Ierusalem est illa civitas,
cuius pax iugis est, summa iucunditas,
ubi non praevenit rem desiderium,
nec desiderio minus est praemium.

quis rex, quae curia, quale palatium,
quae pax, quae requies, quod illud gaudium,
huius participes exponant gloriam,
si quantum sentiunt, possint exprimere.

nostrum est interim mentem erigere
et totis patriam votis appetere,
et ad Ierusalem a Babylonia
post longa regredi tandem exilia.

illic molestiis finitis omnibus
securi cantica Sion cantibimus,
et iuges gratias de donis gratiae
beata referet plebs tibi, Domine.

illic ex sabbato succedet sabbatum,
perpes laetitia sabbatizantium,
nec ineffabiles cessabunt iubili,
quos decantabimus et nos et angeli.

perenni Domino perpes sit gloria,
ex quo sunt, per quem sunt, in quo sunt omnia;
ex quo sunt, Pater est; per quem sunt, Filius;
in quo sunt, Patris et Filii Spiritus.

[Soccer Scrimmage]

School Songs

Reed, I think either you or I must have had an idiosyncratic educational experience.

Contra "about 90% of US high schools have an alma mater song that is to the same tune as Cornell's", my high school certainly didn't have a song, nor have I ever heard of high school songs being a widespread phenomenon, outside of posh boarding schools.

And contra, "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", we definitely had a mascot, as did all the other elementary schools in our county. Whose school mascot would win in a fight was the source of much discussion.

And while my university has a song, I think I heard it once, at the first day of freshman orientation.

[Incandenza]

School Songs

My elementary school was the Riley Roadrunners. Why an elementary school in a Southern Calfornia suburb was named for Indiana's most famous poet, James Whitcomb Riley, I'll never know.

[The Exploding Vole]

School Songs

In high school we lobbied hard to change the school fight song from Illinois Loyalty to Get Up (I Feel Like Being A) Sex Machine [Part 1].

[Reed John]

School Songs

Reed, I think either you or I must have had an idiosyncratic educational experience.

Contra "about 90% of US high schools have an alma mater song that is to the same tune as Cornell's", my high school certainly didn't have a song, nor have I ever heard of high school songs being a widespread phenomenon, outside of posh boarding schools. .

I'm thinking you're the exception in this case. As far as I can tell having travelled the length and breadth of this land and enjoyed reading local newspaper sports sections, I'm pretty sure that most public high schools of any size and wearwithall have a football team and a band program. In almost all cases, the band program has a marching band that plays at the football games and sometimes the basketball and hockey games. They need something to play in pre-game in addition to the national anthem, so there's an alma mater. They need something to play when their team scores so there's a fight song. I don't think this is rare at all. Certainly, it's true across Pennsylvania and the midwest, at least, and I've never been told by anyone from anywhere - until you appeared on this thread - that this is at all unusual.

Quite the opposite, I'm not sure if posh schools usually have a marching band. I would imagine most of them are too small to come up with a full marching band and they may also consider it déclassé.

And contra, "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", we definitely had a mascot, as did all the other elementary schools in our county. Whose school mascot would win in a fight was the source of much discussion.

Like I said, we adopted one when I was in fourth grade so maybe this has changed since I was in school. It's so much easier and cheaper now to get decent t-shirts and what not printed these days that I can see why schools would want an identity to put on things they could sell for fundraisers.

And while my university has a song, I think I heard it once, at the first day of freshman orientation.

I thought you went to Maryland. I'm sure they have a fight song, although I don't know what it is.

[Heliotrope]

School Songs

In case SS isn't around, he went to Chicago.

My high school had a fight song to the tune of the Air Force Academy's, but our alma mater was an original composition. I can still remember all the words to it, but when I try to recall the fight song, it turns into the Penn fight song. We had a lot of songs at Penn: "The Red and the Blue" is so popular that you'll hear it sung at weddings of Penn alumni (though the arm gesture probably makes us look like Hitler Youth) and there's a tradition of throwing of toast at football games during "Drink a Highball."

[Soccer Scrimmage]

School Songs

Turns out you know more about my high school than I do, Reed.

According to my sister, who was in the band, my high school does have a fight song (but it was stolen from Ohio State, not Cornell). Given that I hated high school and never attended a single sporting event I feel like I have an excuse for not knowing that.

And thank you, Heliotrope, for correcting the record regarding my alma mater.

[Reed John]

School Songs

For some reason I thought you went to Maryland undergrad and Chicago for grad school. Did somebody on OTF go to Maryland? Jefe perhaps?