OT: The Victors has the fewest clichés (zero) of any major fight song
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/college-fight-song-lyrics/
Of the songs we examined, 44 include the word “fight” — usually more than once: “Fight” is sung, said or yelled 185 times total in these songs. Forty-one songs use either “win” or “victory,” and 35 name the school’s colors; 29 feature some sort of spelling (including acronyms), while 18 use the word “rah” and 10 use some other nonsense syllable. Twenty-four mention men in some capacity — often as “boys” or “sons” — and 12 name the school’s opponent, either a perennial rival or the foe of the day.
this article also includes an unfortunate lie: that the Notre Dame victory March is the best college fight song in the country. Almost made me throw out the entire dataset.
_0.gif)
December 26th, 2020 at 10:44 AM ^
"It was named the No. 1 college fight song by NFL.com in 2015."
What the hell does the NFL know about college fight songs anyhow.
December 26th, 2020 at 11:07 AM ^
This post reminds me of doing too much adderall
December 26th, 2020 at 11:11 AM ^
So there’s that...
December 26th, 2020 at 11:15 AM ^
I love "The Victors" but "champions of the West" may not be a cliche but it does sound weird. Historically understandable but weird.
December 26th, 2020 at 11:32 AM ^
I know it's because Michigan used to be as west as the country was back then, but now I like to interpret the lyrics as meaning champions of the western world (ie not Europe or Asia)
December 26th, 2020 at 11:48 AM ^
Michigan, along with Chicago, Wisconsin, Northwestern, Minnesota, Illinois, and Purdue, were in the Western Conference at the time (i.e. 1890s).
December 26th, 2020 at 1:06 PM ^
Nice. I prefer that to the actual historical reason.
December 26th, 2020 at 11:23 AM ^
I wonder how many people with the surname 'Best' have attended UM. Your name would be right there in the fight song: "Leaders and best." How cool would that be?
December 26th, 2020 at 11:49 AM ^
I knew a guy named Mike Best when I was in school. He was one of the best Mikes around.
December 26th, 2020 at 12:16 PM ^
There was a guy whose name always popped up on the sign-in sheet when we had a substitute teacher, although he was never present. Mike Hunt, I believe, was his name.
December 26th, 2020 at 1:09 PM ^
Dear Brain,
Very cool.
Sincerely,
Ephraim Leader
December 26th, 2020 at 11:30 AM ^
‘Notre Dame Victory March,’ which was inspired by ‘The Victors,” after a loss to Michigan. Notre Dame Stadium, copied off of Michigan Stadium. The game of football itself being taught to Notre Dame by Michigan in 1888.
We’ve given you so much and yet I will always despise you forever and ever.
And I say this as someone who is beyond burned out by Alabama...I hope they put 60 on you next week and your coach goes into his purple face meltdown mode ala South Florida. Fuck Notre Dame.
What were we taking about again?
December 26th, 2020 at 2:09 PM ^
When they're little, they step on your toes. When they're grown, they step on your heart...
December 26th, 2020 at 12:45 PM ^
So we got THAT goin for us, which is nice.
And take that Ohio State, ya fucks.
December 26th, 2020 at 12:52 PM ^
Hail to the Victors zero cliches ... except for
“Victory” - Victors, vict'ry
“Rah”- hurrah, hurrah
TLDR any further.
December 26th, 2020 at 1:05 PM ^
I find myself humming the Notre Dame fight song when I watch Rudy just like I find myself humming the Soviet national anthem when I hear it in movies. I don't know which one is worse.
December 26th, 2020 at 5:20 PM ^
User name does not check out
December 26th, 2020 at 1:26 PM ^
Confession: I like ND's fight song. Not as much as ours, which is clearly better. Impartial observers have backed this up.
December 26th, 2020 at 8:43 PM ^
I will not publicly admit I like this fight song, but I know a lot of HS around my neck of the woods that have "wake up the echos" as their school song and admittedly I hum along to it.
December 26th, 2020 at 1:29 PM ^
While the definition of what constitutes a cliche seems pretty vague, I found only two others in the list of 65 fight songs with 0 cliches:
Boston College - It reads more like a hymn or national anthem than a fight song, maybe it was written in the 18th century, before the inventions of cliches.
Tennessee - Ol' Rocky Top has some engaging lyrics, just not about a sporting event. Pining for a half-human, half-animal girlfriend is totally in keeping with Tennessee fans, though.
We're still the leaders and best. By extension, fuck NFL.com
December 26th, 2020 at 1:44 PM ^
Galaxy brain take: that’s because The Victors isn’t a fight song. The Victors is about celebrating a win that has already been achieved. One could call it the original Michigan Arrogance.
December 26th, 2020 at 1:57 PM ^
Wow, somebody at that site needs to find something better to do with his time. I love announcements about which is the “best” fight song, which is so plainly a matter of opinion that there can be no correct answer, although people constantly proclaim there is one.
December 26th, 2020 at 4:44 PM ^
Given that there are a nonzero number of MGoDenizens that performed the Victors countless times in college as members of the Michigan Marching Band, I think you'd find the discussion over fight songs isn't a useless topic.
It also only took me five minutes to post this.
December 26th, 2020 at 2:17 PM ^
I hope this helps with recruiting and improving our coaching staff.
December 26th, 2020 at 3:48 PM ^
It's unlikely to hurt our recruiting or make our coaching staff worse. So I'll take it on a slow news day as I look forward to that Lions recap...