Further simplified lyrics for use by Georgia fans as follows:
DERR-PA DERPA DERPA DERP DERP.
DERR-PA DERPA DERPA DERP DERP.
DERR-PA DERPA DERPA DERP DERP.
DERP DERP DERP DERP DERP DERP.
You’re welcome, Bulldog fans.
Huge build up, slow to start, and pretty good (but not great) overall – that’s Ohio State in a nutshell.
NON-AQ CRACKS THE TOP TEN QUICK SOMEONE ALERT THE BCS.
Navy continues their proud football tradition of hating on Army.
I was originally going to credit this little ditty exclusively to Wisconsin, but then I found out that Georgia Tech has also embraced this song and since both institutions are equally awesome, we have a tie.
Wisconsin’s tradition is to hang out after the football game and listen to the marching band play this song (among others) while everyone drinks and has a good time. I also imagine there to be cheese and brats involved, proving yet again that Wisconsin just knows how to do things right.
Elsewhere, Georgia Tech’s students have a reputation for being drunk pretty much constantly so it stands to reason that when they needed a song to play between the 3rd and 4th quarter (the apex of intoxication in college football) they decided to go with a song from a beer commercial.
When you’ve said Wisconsin or Budweiser (or Ram Power), you’ve said it all.
Edit:
My wife (who is a band geek) was quick to point out that my high school plays this song too. She claims that she still knows how to play it. I, meanwhile, claim to pity the fool who was ever in band.
Ohio State, like other several other teams and perhaps owing to the nature of the BCS system, is attempting to game this noble fight song countdown by having multiple fight songs. This is a gutsy move, especially for a team that had the balls to go to back-to-back BCS National Championship Games only to get dump-trucked by whatever 1-loss SEC team was still intact at the end of that particular season.
No matter though, as it appears the gambit has paid off. I had planned on doing a longer article that discussed The Best Damn Band in the Land and how even if you’re not a band geek, you can still appreciate how cool Script Ohio is. The weekend ended up getting the better of me. So without further attempts at padding the article with unnecessarily long word thingies, here is one of The Ohio State University’s fight songs that doesn’t suck (looking at you, Carmen Ohio).
While most of the college football world outside of southern California is content to straight hate on USC, I’m in the apparent minority that has a begrudging respect for them. That’s not to say I don’t secretly hope the entire team comes down with a case of stomach flu the likes of which would cripple a bear before playing Notre Dame, but I digress.
Wikipedia nailed this one.
Tribute To Troy, the incessant stanza of pounding drums and blaring horns, is played after every defensive stop.
Those horns. Those goddamned horns. Fans of the game and especially Pac-10 fans know the pain and torture that these horns bring. If you hear them, it means that USC has just choked the life out of your offense’s latest effort, leaving its broken, battered corpse somewhere short of the oasis that is the first down marker (or in worse cases, the goal line).
This song also has the special talent of echoing in your head in your head well after the game is over, and from 2002 until recently this was a condition that only the better part of a fifth of Jack Daniel’s could cure. But now, thanks to recent advances in Pac-10 offensive technology, all you have to do is remember the likes of LaMichael James or (better yet) Toby Gerhart running roughshod over and through the 2009 Trojan defense.
Brings a smile to my face every time. Not resizing this sumbitch because FUCK YEAH.
Apologies in advance for the video for two reasons – (1) it was the best that YouTube had available and (2) those goddamned horns.
Posting without exposition as I’m tired and late with this one.
Edit:
After thinking about it, not much else needs to be said about “War Eagle” other than it’s a catchy tune and that it stands out in a league that is first in football talent but almost completely devoid of good fight songs.
Stanford actually has two fight songs. The official fight song (which is terrible, by the way) is “Come Join the Band” and it is over 100 years old and set to the tune of nobody gives a damn.
Stanford’s de facto fight song is actually “All Right Now” by the English rock band Free and truth be told it isn’t that great of a song. The reason Stanford’s unofficial fight song made my list is largely due to the band that performs it.
Now why the Leland Stanford Junior University Marching Band chose to embrace this song is beyond me, but I assume they had their reasons. Attempting to ascertain those reasons would be a fool’s errand, as the LSJUMB as a group is both certifiably insane and supremely awesome. I know, I know – supremely awesome band? Indeed they are, and they deserve your respect, dear reader.
In 1986, the University suspended the band from traveling to the UCLA football game scheduled on November 8, 1986 after incidents in previous games that season. First, on October 11, 1986, an infamous incident of public urination happened following the home football game against the University of Washington. Second, during the halftime show of the home USC game on October 19, 1986, the band spelled out “NO BALLZ”. Finally, for the next game they performed an anagram show and spelled out an anagrammed four-letter word (“NCUT”).
No other band has ever accomplished anything even half as impressive during a 3-game span.
The band typically looks something like this:
And then there’s this:
I highly doubt that any other band would attempt to foil a hated enemy’s miraculous comeback themselves.
So now that I’ve set the bar for future posts in this series unrealistically high, here is the song itself:
Stay classy, Tide fans.
It has begun!
Some say the end is near.
Some say we’ll see Armageddon soon.Some say the Buffs have joined the Pac-10.
Followed by the Huskers up and joining the Big Ten.
Followed by Texas teams that cannot sit still.
Followed by millions of dumbfounded college football fans.
Alternatively:
The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is rapidly fadin’
And the first one now will later be last
For the times they are a-changin’
Like most Idahoans, I’ll be okay so long as Boise State breaks out of the WAC. Bring on the chaos, baby.