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Fight song

For other uses, see Fight song (disambiguation).
Not to be confused with school songs, a song used to represent a school or university.

A fight song is a rousing short song associated with a sports team.[1] The term is most common in the United States and Canada. In Australia, Mexico, and New Zealand, these songs are called the team anthem, team song, or games song. First associated with collegiate sports, fight songs are also used by secondary schools and in professional sports.

Fight songs are sing-alongs, allowing sports fans to cheer collectively for their team.[2] These songs are commonly played several times at a sporting event.[1] For example, the band might play the fight song when entering the stadium, whenever their team scores, or while cheerleaders dance at halftime or during other breaks in the game.[1][3] In Australian rules football, the team song is traditionally sung by the winning team at the end of the game.

Some fight songs have a long history, connecting the fans who sing them to a time-honored tradition, frequently to music played by the institution's band.[1] An analysis of 65 college fight songs by FiveThirtyEight identified words commonly used in the lyrics of these songs, including fight, win, and victory.[4] Other common elements of fight song lyrics are mentioning the team's colors, spelling out the school's name, and using the words "hail" and "rah."[4] Many songs were composed by students, alumni, or faculty of the institution; for example, Cole Porter wrote "Bulldog" for his alma mater Yale College. Some songs are created by pairing new lyrics with a pre-existing tune, even another college's fight song.[4][5][3]

Hundreds of colleges have fight songs, most originating from the early 20th century in connection with football.[5] The first collegiate fight song in the United States is Boston College's "For Boston", written and composed by T. J. Hurley in 1885.[6][5] One of the oldest fight songs in Australia is Melbourne Grammar School's "Play Together, Dark Blue Twenty" dating to before 1893.[7] In 1997, USA Today selected "Aggie War Hymn", the fight song of Texas A&M University, as the "No. 1" college football fight song in the United States.[5]

Although used similarly, stadium anthems differ from fight songs because they are not written specifically for a sports team. Fight songs are also different from an alma mater or school song, which is a patronal song for an educational institution and usually has a slower tempo.[1]

  1. ^ a b c d e Dodrill, Tara; Vasen, Debbie. "High School Fight Songs". Love to Know. Retrieved 2017-11-26.
  2. ^ Greatrix, Paul (20 September 2019). "Rah, rah, rah: deconstructing the US college fight song". Wonkhe. Retrieved 2022-09-18.
  3. ^ a b Edgemon, Erin (2016-09-09). "The greatest college football fight songs ranked". AL. Retrieved 2022-09-19.
  4. ^ a b c Koeze, Ella; Paine, Neil; Ziegler, Sara (2019-08-30). "Our Guide To The Exuberant Nonsense Of College Fight Songs". FiveThirtyEight. Retrieved 2022-09-18.
  5. ^ a b c d Pinto, Michael. "The 50 Greatest College Football Fight Songs of All Time (With Video)". Bleacher Report. Retrieved 2022-09-18.
  6. ^ Soyer, Daniel (2008-04-29). "Beyond "For Boston"". @BC. Boston College. Archived from the original on 2012-05-28. Retrieved 2012-08-06.
  7. ^ Eagle, Chester (1986). Play together, dark blue twenty. Melbourne: Trojan Press. ISBN 9780869140314.