Academic

Fight Songs Of Southern Universities

By Ann Bartow

So today I was ruminating on the University of South Carolina’s fight song, called “Step to the Rear,” a fight song in which the only lyrics are “Go Cocks!” Here’s a version played at a football game by The Mighty Sound of the Southeast, but be careful, the visuals might make you seasick. And here is bonus footage of the Gamecock cheer.

The University of Florida’s main fight song is “The Orange and the Blue.” I guess the title helps students there remember what the school colors are. The University of Miami fight song highlights the fact that football fans there can spell Miami. But Miami probably shouldn’t even be in this post because friends at that school tell me it is too far south to be Southern. The University of Louisville seems to find the entire name of the school too long to pronounce, so it deploys “Fight U of L” on fans and foes. Here is the first stanza:

Fight now for victory and show them
How we sure will win this game
Fight on you Cardinals and prove to them
That we deserve our fame.
Rah, Rah, Rah!
Roll up the score now and beat the foe
So we can give a yell
With a FIGHT! give them all you’ve got
For we are with you U of L.

That “Rah, Rah Rah!” line kind of cracks me up, and the last line, “For we are with you U of L” is a tongue twister. The University of Tennessee seems to have at least two fight songs. I wonder if this confuses the UT band. The first is called “Down the Field.” A second fight song for the University of Tennessee is “Rocky Top”, which speaks quite favorably of moonshine. A fuller if somewhat nasal rendition is here. Note that the second stanza is as follows:

Once there was a girl on rocky top,
Half bear the other half cat.
Wild as a mink, sweet as soda pop,
I still dream about that.

Sexist yes, but it can hardly hold a candle to this excerpt of “Ramblin’ Wreck from Georgia Tech”:

Oh if I had a daughter
I’d dress her in white and gold
And put her on the campus
To cheer the brave and bold
But if I had a son, sir
I tell you what he’d do
He’d yell TO HELL WITH GEORGIA
The way his daddy used to do

The melody of the U of Georgia fight song “Glory, Glory to Ole Georgia” sounds strangely familiar. Then there is this abomination from Florida State University. Blech.

–Ann Bartow

Full post as published by Feminist Law Professors on November 23, 2008 (boomark / email).