Did your school have an official song?

CinnamonSugar

CinnamonSugar

A Quiet American
The high school I attended in S California in the early 70’s had an official School Song.. I’m not talking about something they played at football games but an actual song we would sing in assemblies.

I remember some of the words…“ hail our colors— green and gold—standing for our dreams untold. As we will strive to reach our goals, for thee for thee….” Seems extremely antiquated now

I don’t remember a school song at the high school I attended my last two years in upstate NY. Maybe it was a west coast thing? Do schools still do this? Did you have a school song and do you remember it?
 

When I lived in Florida, I attended Howell L. Watkins Junior High School. It's since has been torn down, and replaced with another school with the same name, except that it's a middle school now. As I remember the school fight song went like:

Go get them Seminoles, we want a victory for the orange, white and blue,
Go get them Seminoles, we got the team it's up to you
Go get them Seminoles, we want the town to ring tonight,
We got the team rah rah, we got the steam rah rah
Come on boys, fight, fight, fight, fight, fiiiiiight
 
We were forced to attend (football) pep rallies (they had students and teachers at all exit doors who would tell you to get to the gym for the rally) where we had to sing the school alma mater song.

Our last year, our football team was undefeated. Not sure if it was because of the song.
 
Junior High School did, but it was one of several fading traditions as it lost its glory days as a once architecturally distinctive proud High School and fixture among its surrounding neighborhoods.
 
Lane Tech - Chicago class of Jan. 1962! It was at that time an all boys college prep tech school with lots of shops.

Yup, we had a school song, one that had the published lyrics and one that had various 4 letter words substituted (sung only at outdoor games).

"Go Lane, for we are here to cheer for you, Go Lane, for you we'll ere be proud!
Be fearless and bold, for the myrtle (green) and the gold......................
....... just take this as a little tip, we're bound to win the championship........

Its been a long time.........
 

FORTY YEARS ON
(John Farmer)

Reggie Goff


Forty years on, when afar and asunder
Parted are those who are singing today,
When you look back, and forgetfully wonder
What you were like in your work and your play,
Then, it may be, there will often come o'er you,
Glimpses of notes like the catch of a song -
Visions of boyhood shall float them before you,
Echoes of dreamland shall bear them along,

Chorus
Follow up! Follow up! Follow up! Follow up! Follow up!
Till the field ring again and again,
With the tramp of the twenty-two men.
Follow up! Follow up!

Routs and discomfitures, rushes and rallies,
Bases attempted, and rescued, and won,
Strife without anger, and art without malice, -
How will it seem to you, forty years on?
Then, you will say, not a feverish minute
Strained the weak heart and the wavering knee,
Never the battle raged hottest, but in it,
Neither the last nor the faintest, were we!

Chorus

O the great days, in the distance enchanted,
Days of fresh air, in the rain and the sun,
How we rejoiced as we struggled and panted -
Hardly believable, forty years on!
How we discoursed of them, one with another,
Auguring triumph, or balancing fate,
Loved the ally with the heart of a brother,
Hated the foe with a playing at hate!

Chorus

Forty years on, growing older and older,
Shorter in wind, as in memory long,
Feeble of foot, and rheumatic of shoulder,
What will it help you that once you were strong?
God give us bases to guard or beleaguer,
Games to play out, whether earnest or fun;
Fights for the fearless, and goals for the eager,
Twenty, and thirty, and forty years on!

Chorus

(written for Sir Winston Churchill's ninetieth birthday and first sung 28th November 1964)

Blazoned in honour! For each generation
You kindled courage to stand and to stay;
You led our fathers to fight for the nation,
Called "Follow up" and yourself showed the way.
We who were born in the calm after thunder
Cherish our freedom to think and to do;
If in our turn we forgetfully wonder,
Yet we'll remember we owe it to you.​

 
Here's to Downey High School, We're strong for you.
We sing your praises, we pledge our hearts to you.
Remember you forever, We'll never fail
Here's to Downey High School, Downey High School hail.

Guess which high school I went to. At graduation, they played a recording of Moments to Remember.

2 bits, 4 bits, 6 bits a dollar. Come on Vikings, lets here you holler. How many people still know how much 2 bits is?
 
Let's give a cheer for (school name)
For the colors green & gold
Let's fight for all united
With a spirit true & bold

When our teams go out to meet any foe
Raise your voices and the world will know
That we are all united
For a victory for
(Clap) (school name)
(Clap) (school name)
(School name) Jr. High
--------------------
I went to this school with a guy who became a mayor & US senator, but not here in NY State.
 
We had a school song but I never cared to learn the words to it. Now if they would have choreographed it to some Led Zepplin or Pink Floyd music I'd still be singing it🤪
 
Grampa Don said:
Here's to Downey High School, We're strong for you.
We sing your praises, we pledge our hearts to you.
Remember you forever, We'll never fail
Here's to Downey High School, Downey High School hail.

Guess which high school I went to. At graduation, they played a recording of Moments to Remember.

2 bits, 4 bits, 6 bits a dollar. Come on Vikings, lets here you holler. How many people still know how much 2 bits is?
Click to expand...
From the Spanish dollar. Cut into eight pieces. Two bits is a quarter of course. I was just discussing this with my son the other day. How Spanish currency ended up in China because of a silver shortage. Of all things. Subject was collectibles, metals in particular.
 
Yes, we had a school song. It was very solemn and boring. In the late 60’s they had a 45 record pressed. I have no idea what was on the B side. Sure it was something even more boring.
 
All of the schools in my youthful realm were in small logging or sawmill towns. None had an anthem. And in almost every case the school fight song was some variation of "On Wisconsin" with the lyrics modified to fit our school name.
 
We had no school song, we had no band, we did not have music classes. In the first 2 years we were bussed to another city, then in the third school year, this school took 45 minutes to walk to. Finally they built a new school in my city, which was located back of my house. Every time, I came home for lunch, I did not want to go back. Basically, for me it was the worst four years of my life. There were bullies, my teachers must have hated kids, because I don't remember one cracking a smile, oh, sorry, I had one very sweet French teacher.
 
It makes me feel a bit better knowing that I'm not the only one that didn't have that "great high school experience".
Until my senior year, I took two Chicago buses to school each way. More often than not, it was a very packed bus, too hot or too cold. I was put in honors classes, while the other eight guys from my grade school went to regular classes. So all of a sudden I was a lone loner. It was a great school in so many respects, but I was just a small fish in a big pond (5,000 guys). Frankly, looking back, school was like going to work - w/o a paycheck.

Ha, I graduated on a Saturday in January ('62), and the following Monday started Junior College full time.
 
My elementary, high school, and university each had school songs, and actually it was the elementary school’s that was the most upbeat and rousing! The high school and university school songs were bittersweet, sentimental, and even depressing. My college song, for example, has lyrics such as “the years steal swiftly o’er us,” and “winter comes with biting sting.” Makes you want to go out and end it all, eh?

It seems like many school songs incorporate martial or sports imagery. My elementary school song references “we will march to victory for honor, love, and fame.” Kids who were at most age 12 knew a lot about those topics… 🙄

I think a lot of school songs were written many decades ago, even earlier 20th century, and persist because of sentimentality… 😿
 
Our high school "fight song":

Here's to old (school name) High,
Love her, yes we do-oo!
Here's to all the students a toast,
So , loyal, faithful, and true-blue. RAH-RAH-RAH

May we ever love her,
Cherish and be true-oo.
Here's to old (school name)
(School name), we are all for you. B-D!

We never had a formal anthem or alma mater, at least not back then. The fight song served for all occasions.

Then I attended Indiana University.

Their fight song was:

Indiana, my Indiana,
Indiana, we're all for you!
We will fight for the cream and crimson,
For the glory of old IU.....RAH-RAH!

Never daunted, we will not falter,
In the battle, we're tried-and-true!
Indiana, our Indiana,
Indiana, we're all for you! IU!

There was also a formal alma mater but it was so soppy I can't remember but a word or two of it.

The first week of freshman year, if you got caught not wearing your freshman beanie, any upperclassman could stop you and demand that you sing either the fight song or the alma mater at the top of your lungs, no matter where you were. We were provided with a card that had both songs on it so that we could sing it "correctly". As embarrassing as it was to wear the beanie (OMG, what it did to your bouffant....), it was more humiliating to have to sing the song out in public, so I wore it.
 
In high school, as I recall, our school song was "99 bottles of beer on the wall".

In college, things got serious:

Carmen Ohio​

Oh come let's sing Ohio's praise
And songs to Alma Mater raise
While our hearts rebounding thrill
With joy which death alone can still
Summer's heat or winter's cold
The seasons pass the years will roll
Time and change will surely (truly) show
How firm thy friendship ... OHIO!
 

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