You never know what you’ll find poking through the loose sheet music in an antiques store. Take this, for example: a souvenir from the days when Ivy League schools were good at football, orchestra leaders were a cultural force, and other things were not so different at all.
Ladies! Gather ’round the parlor piano and tune your ukuleles to B-flat, because I’m about to teach you the new song all the college boys will be singing at the homecoming bonfires. It’s called “Hold ’Em,” and it’s by my pal Eddie DeLange and me, Dave Ringle.
Don’t worry, you don’t need to know anything about football to see where this is going!
HOLD ’EM Yale! HOLD ’EM Yale! You’re so strong and they’re so frail
So when you get the chance, just HOLD ’EM Yale
Kiss ’em Yale! Kiss ’em Yale! Girls all like a husky male
Go on and take a chance and Kiss ’em Yale!
When you fight for dear old Yale you put the ball across,
But when you’re with the “weaker sex” she throws you for a loss…
What’s the matter, dollface? You’re not laughing! Oh, I get it, you’re worried you won’t get fixed up with a Yale man. No problem, I’ve got a chorus for all the big teams!
HOLD ’EM Brown! HOLD ’EM Brown! Now’s the time to go to town
So when you get the chance, just HOLD ’EM Brown!
Kiss ’em Brown! Kiss ’em Brown! You’re the king so wear the crown,
Don’t let them turn you down, just Kiss ’em Brown!
When you try a forward pass you strive with might and main,
So when you strive to win a lass just carry on the same
Oh! HOLD ’EM Brown! HOLD ’EM Brown!
Squeeze ’em till they holler “DOWN”
Don’t worry if they frown just HOLD ’EM Brown!
Well, my my, if those college boys could see the frowny faces in this room, they would get worried! Loosen up, girls! You brainy Bryn Mawr types will want to memorize this chorus to let the boys at Penn know you’re still marriage material:
I have seen you make a gain with just a yard to go,
Why don’t you use the same attack before the girl says “No”
HOLD ’EM Penn! HOLD ’EM Penn! You can tell ’em to say “when”
But while you’ve got the chance just HOLD ’EM Penn!
What? Yes, of course these are the real words. Hey, you Catholic girls, I’ve got just the thing to inspire those boys at Notre Dame:
No one stopped the “Horsemen” with the toughest forward wall
So you must use the right attack to make the girlies fall…
Go Irish! But, Dave, I think I hear you saying, what if the school where I hunt for a husband doesn’t have a one-syllable nickname? I’ve already thought of that:
HOLD ’EM long, HOLD ’EM strong, Minnesota use your brawn…
And prove to them with kisses, you belong
With the Minnesota shift you stripped the Big Tens’ gears
If you don’t shift from cold to hot, you’ll have the girl in tears, So!
HOLD ’EM long, HOLD ’EM strong, HOLD ’EM till the break of dawn
They love it Minnesota, HOLD ’EM long.
I know sometimes you girls like to tease, so it’s important for the guys to know that they really owe it to you to follow through.
Kiss ’em too, kiss ’em too, or they’ll find somebody new
Then they will have the laugh on you Purdue
That one reminds your fella that if he doesn’t press his advantage while he’s got the chance, you’ll just turn around and put out for someone else. And won’t he feel like a chump then! If it’s a Princeton man you want to shame, try this:
Tigers of old Nassau are the bravest on the field
But who’d call you a Tiger if you can’t get her to yield
That’ll get him going!
Kiss ’em men, kiss ’em men, don’t you let ’em tell you “when”
You’ll be the boy-friend then old Michigan.
Who’s traveling up Ithaca way? This’ll make the trip worthwhile:
Kiss ’em right, kiss ’em right even if they show some fight
Just keep on kissing Cornell, kiss ’em right.
You have won when they all thought you didn’t have a chance
So just remember girls all go for anything in pants, Oh!
HOLD ’EM well, make ’em yell, if you’re good they’ll think you’re swell
And they’ll take off their hats to Old Cornell.
You’re welcome, gals. And remember, if I left out your boyfriend’s school, I’m happy to take requests! That’s the beauty of this thing—not only is it clever, the message is universal.
Tags: college football, feminism, history, mollie wilson o’reilly, music, remember when Ivy League schools were good at football, sexual assault
There’s something uniquely terrifying in realizing that someone could not only invent this song and sing it, but carefully transcribe chord progressions and time signatures without a whiff of shame at any point.
At first I was hoping that my current university was left off the list. (Oh, no, it’s there. It’s typically terrible. I think the band has to sing something like this when the really old alumni show up.) The only word to describe the feeling I have after reading is “nausea.”
I think you mean “naustalgia.”
Charming. Some things never change.
UGH. UGHHHH
Stuff like this – jokey, blissfully arrogant misogyny which passes itself off as fun while denying a woman’s right not to be touched – always enrages and terrifies me much more than explicitly malicious material. I feel like I want to scrub my brain.
But how could they leave out Ohio State?
All this campus rape stuff wouldn’t be happening if we went back to the good old days when people courted and went on dates.
Oh.
Wait.
Ladies! Gather ’round the parlor piano and tune your ukuleles to B-flat!
You know, this is actually worse than most rape jokes.
I guess there’s some relief and consolation in that it was written whole 83 years ago (give or take)
Wait, you mean this is an example of how rape culture embeds itself into university students who then become contributing alumni and pass along “traditions” and harmful attitudes disguised as good-natured school spirit? That this would somehow suggest that the school spirit for the men in question is tied up in both athletic achievement and sexual exploit in such a way as to make the two concepts difficult to extricate from one another, the one imputing the logistics and paradigm of a “game” onto the other? You mean it’s not just “kids these days” with their drugs and their cell phones but has been a systemic pattern of behavior for decades?
Goodness no, you’re reading it all wrong, it’s just a bit of sport old gal!
This is definitely gross, but this is no worse than “Dartmouth’s In Town.” If you search for it, you’ll probably get the version with the lyrics “Team, team, team!”, which I’m sure some people sang. However, the version that the Internet doesn’t want to talk about has the lyrics “run, girls, run” and of course, “Rape, rape, rape!” Here is some evidence beyond “stories my dad told.” http://issuu.com/westonmagazinegroup/docs/alpine-…
I’m not sure what the point of your comment is, other than to provide another example of old-timey misogyny embedded in school spirit.
Yeah, that first sentence was questionable, sorry. The point was that this sort of thing is typical, not anomalous, and these traditions extend to the present day literally and not just spiritually (i.e. male students are still singing some of these songs).
Oh, don’t worry. Bryn Mawr students (women, womyn, mawrtyrs all) have enough songs to counter this wimpy one. Though most of our songs are about drinking or writing our lengthy papers, we do have a coupla man-hating songs in the mix.
“Well, I haven’t seen a man in 17 weeks/the closest that I’ve come to are wimps and geeks/can’t remember how they look, but I think they reek/thank God I’m a Mawrtyr Girl”
I know I’m going to regret this, but I see the Harvard flag, so I have to ask – how bad is that version? I’m particularly interested because Radcliffe’s existence means the university (not the college) was co-ed at this point, unlike, say, Yale.
I knew there was a reason my boyfriend’s lack of college education was troubling. I guess this explains why I’m allowed to say “when” 🙁
I didn’t even know my school had a fight song until my commencement weekend, but it tickles me to bits that this was the second stanza (which I’m sure is a later addition):
We’re the Oberlin Yeomen. We fought, fought, fought, fought, fought.
We aced the test but on the field our efforts were for nought.
We’re Oberlin. We never win. We’re Oberlin. We never win.
Some things just can’t be taught.
Also offensive is how badly some of those lines scan.
I am currently attending the University of Washington, whose mascot is the Huskies. Once a week I end up with junk mail with titles like "Husky Male Football Team Crushes Competition".
Okay, I am totally willing to admit that I am dense, but somebody needs to just straight out tell me this is made up, because I just can’t tell and am horrified. 🙁