College Fight Songs - Comments Requested
In honor of this past weekend's great college football action, I want to ask for some reader input on the best, the worst, the most overrated, and the most underrated of all college fight songs. Here are my picks:
Best Fight Song
(1) "Notre Dame Victory March"
(2) "The Victors" (University of Michigan)
(3) "Fight On" (University of Southern California)
Worst Fight Song
(1) "The Good Old Song" (University of Virginia)
(2) "The Good Old Song" (University of Virginia)
(3) "The Good Old Song" (University of Virginia)
(honorable mention: "Tiger Rag" (Clemson University) - in addition to the horrible "melody", the lyrics of this awful fight song also celebrate the demise of the school's own mascot; but then, we are talking about the Clemson Institutute for the Mentally and Emotionally Challenged)
Most Overrated Fight Song (a.k.a "Yeah, yeah, your football team is on TV every week so your fight song is shoved down our throats.")
(1) "Boomer Sooner" (University of Oklahoma)
(2) "Texas Fight" (University of Texas)
(3) "Notre Dame Victory March" (it's definitely overrated, but it's still the best)
Most Underrated Fight Song (a.k.a. "You'd know this song by heart if our football team didn't suck.")
(1) "Rice University Fight Song"
(2) "Bear Down You Bears of Old Baylor U." (Baylor University)
(3) "Go U Northwestern" (Northwestern University)
(honorable mention: "Hail New Mexico" (University of New Mexico))
Okay, no homerism. Don't pick a song as best or worst just because you like or don't like a particular school or team. By the way, did I tell you that my alma mater's fight song absolutely SUCKS?
posted by Pro Ecclesia 7:48 AM
10 comments
10 Comments:
"On Wisconsin" is pretty rousing and, I must admit, "Across the Field" (Ohio State University) realy gets the blood flowing.
Okay, no homerism
Pardon my ignorance, but I am wondering what the etymology of homerism is. Is it something pertaining to the Homer the Greek poet or Homer, the cartoon dad, or something altogether different?
Doh!
"Homerism" refers to rooting for the home team. To see/hear an example, watch a Chicago White Sox game on WGN and listen to the guys in the broadcast booth.
Unfortunately, Saturday night we heard too much "Across the Field" following field goals and not enough after touchdowns.
Thanks Jay,
I think I'd prefer to think of a homerism as, "mmmmm, donuts". ;)
I'm going to nominate the Texas A&M Aggie Fight Song, which is more aganst rival UT Austin than it is for Aggie players. The first (intelligible) line: "So Long to Texas University, so long to the Orange and the White."
Paul,
There is something quite stirring in those opening bugle notes of A&M's fight song. Of course, when I was a Baylor undergrad, we used to mock the Ag's thusly:
"A-helluva-lotta-ca-rap-ca-rap, a helluva-lotta-ca-rap!"
I'm quite sure we weren't supposed to say "hell" at Baylor, unless we were talking about the place where all those heathens at A&M would one day wind up. ;)
Jay, I love the ND song, but I would have to place at the top "Glory, Glory, Hallelujah," the fight song of the University of Georgia Bulldogs.
You get Football & Religion with every Dawg touchdown. What could be better?
Zach,
I almost listed that one as honorable mention for "worst" fight song. What is the world coming to when Sherman can burn 2/3 of the State of Georgia, and the state's university nevertheless plays the Yankee anthem in a celebratory fashion after touchdowns?
I must say that I've never quite understood it.
;)
Come now, my friend! I don't think anyone north of the Mason Dixon line sings that song anymore, and once Elvis lent his crushed velvet touch to it, the song was forever appropriated to Southern culture. I'm about to shed a tear!
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