Teaching "Hail To the Victors" in school
I was just at Barnes and Nobles in Fort Myers, Florida, when I heard an announcement that an elementary school band would be performing in part of the store. Shortly there after I hear a tune, a wonderful fantastic melody that overwhelmed me with joy. Low and behold it was Hail to the Victors. I promptly and swiftly moved to the location of the band and as they finished I gave a Arm Pumping "GO BLUE!"
Ok I'm a dick. I actually do think its cool that they are doing that but my web-insecurities lead me to attempt to use humour as a self defense mechanism a la Michael Scott.
I felt that I must share this with the MgoBlog community. Especially since it was in Florida.
I live about 45 miles north of you. If I had to guess, you were at the store next to Best Buy on Fowler.
And the guy below is talking about Port Charlotte, where my parents currently reside. Small world.
They were pretty young, I would say 8 or 9 so definiely not in high school yet. And i didn't want to be a creep and ask, "so where do these children go to school?"
p.s. They were almost all girls, so extra creepyness if I had.
What is "Hail to the Victors"?
Cut him some slack, a lot of people refer to it as "Hail to the Victors" instead of "The Victors."
Lot of people refer to us as Michigan University too. Just because a lot of people do it doesn't mean it's right.
IF A LOT OF PEOPLE JUMPED OFF A CLIFF WOULD YOU DO IT TOO?
How tall is the cliff and what's at the bottom?
it's taller than everest, but brandon graham and zoltan mesko are waiting to catch you. so jump after me...
That was, maybe, just a bit too weird. I appreciate stories of man love, but, dude ....
Where the hell is your mind at? I meant that you'd be safe if you jumped. I don't know where you're going with this "man love"thing.
Who calls us Michigan University?
This is a small pet peeve of mine too when people mistakenly add the "Hail to"
I know that it's called "The Victors" but I will occasionally add the "Hail to" when speaking with lesser fans who wouldn't know it by its name. It's kind of like people who don't know that "The Big Butt Song" is actually "Baby Got Back" or "The Mammal Song" is "The Bad Touch". It's just what it is referred to as.
of the bloodhound gang.
"Yeah I'm hung like planet Pluto hard to see with the naked eye,
But if I crashed into Uranus I would stick it where the sun don't shine,
Cause I'm kind of like Han Solo always stroking my own wookie,
I'm the root of all that's evil yeah but you can call me cookie"
Teenage Wasteland -> Baba O'Riley
Are not those of us on Mgoblog
+1 for your avatar. Space Ghost Coast to Coast was an awsesome show.
It is pretty common. In 6th grade, my first year of band, it was one of the first recognizable tunes we got to play. This happened in North Carolina. It's a pretty simple melody that is fun to play.
I went to my oldest daughters High School orientation for her first year and the band played that piece of crap OSU fight song. Next chance it was hang on sloopy. I think to myself GREAT the freaking band teacher is an OSU grad only to find out that the school uses all the music from OSU for everything and anything. This is in Kansas.
At least you found out at orientation. Good time to start shopping for homes in other high school districts.
Thankfully, I don't even know offhand what the OSU fight song sounds like.
It kinda souds like this
fucked up like polio.
violate the "no establishment" of religion clause of the First Amendment?
We are talking religion here, are we not?
(Funny, my high school's fight song used to crib the tune for "On Wisconsin," with different words...)
Dude, mine did too, in the great metropolis of Flushing, MI.
Mine too, in the suburbs of Cincinnati, Ohio. Our main rivals used "Across the Field" and "Hang on Stupid" (yes, I meant to say that) which made them that much easier to cheer against.
We had the Sparty fight song...
..for your pain.
I still wake up screaming...
With crappy, very very HS lyrics rhymed to it.
We moved from Ann Arbor to north Houston when I was growing up. I was in slated to attend a local high school that used ND's song. One year before I was to begin, they opened a new high school that I ened up going to. First day of school I heard The Victor's and knew the heavens had smiled down upon on me.
We have Illinois's, which is funny because we're reaching Zook's level of competitiveness in our conference.
so did my high school in Fremont, MI. i have a feeling this is a very popular occurance.
My high school rolls to the tune of Northwestern's fight song (Go You Northwestern). All of the words are exactly the same, only difference is our name instead of Northwestern's. However, every year the 6th grade band consisting of students from every elementary plays a version of On Wisconsin
On your pizza!
On your cor-don bleu!
.......................
That's how it goes, right? I can't hear that song anymore without remembering the words to the cheese commercial song.
my six year old and her younger brother were debating exactly when the lyrics state "leaders and best" and "champions of the west" .
He was very confident, but she had it right.
Daddy was very proud.
son was singing the Victors the other day and said "Hail to the Concrete Heroes."
I said, "Wait, what was that? Concrete heroes?" thinking maybe I just heard him wrong--he's a bit of a mumbler. He said, "You know, the guys that build the buildings. Is that right?" So of course I had him drop and give me twenty. [not really]
My wife's an Indiana grad. I often rub the Victors in her face by saying, "Okay kids, sing the Michigan song." And when they're done with that, I say, "Okay, now sing Mom's Indiana song." They've got nothing. Crickets. She can't even get them to remember the tune let alone a lyric. Victory is mine.
.. my boy was with me at the Jewel over the weekend and he loves to talk to people. Well, he saw an older guy with a Michigan sweatshirt on and as we walked by, he gave his loudest "Go Blue!"
Once the man regained his composure, he muttered a somewhat softer "yeah, go blue" back.
Gotta love the passion.
I like that.
Reggie McKenzie; Steve Hutchinson; Jake Long. Them are some concrete heros.
It's pretty awesome. Although I do think that part of it has to do with The Victors being such a memorable tune. For instance, I knew the tune of ND's fight song before I even knew a thing about CFB. I think that The Victors, much to Louis Elbel's credit, is also that memorable a tune. John Philip Sousa would certainly agree.
The only reason I can carry the tune of the ND fight song is that my high school math teacher taught us to memorize the quadratic equation to that horrible song.
x equals negative b
plus or minus the square root of
b squared minus 4 a c
all divided by 2 a
rah, rah, rah
My high school's fight song was written to the tune of ND's fight song. I just wanted to puke at every pep rally.
I not only remember playing it back in the day, I remember the book it was in!
http://www.amazon.com/Yamaha-Band-Student-Book-Trumpet/dp/0882844032
I taught a group of kindergarteners everything I could about Michigan. They learned the fight song, they drew pictures of the block M (some of the more talented artists moved on to drawing the whole field), and story time featured great moments from Wolverines games. One of the kids, a UVA fan, said he didn't think it was right, because all of the kids had been Virginia fans and now some were changing allegiance. I explained to him that it was like introducing chocolate cake to a group of people who had only had vegetables to eat before. He seemed skeptical, but didn't push the argument further.
We must all educate as many of the infidels as we can, so that their souls may enjoy a wonderful eternal rest, and their lives may be enriched on autumn Saturdays.