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Van Nuys High School
Fight Song

The Band in Crimson and Grey military uniforms on the field at half-time, and in the stands during play. Every time the Wolves scored a touchdown the Band would play...

You can now relive that experience (sort of) if your browser has a MIDI-player:

Thanks to Richard Morton, who must have been having a slow day at the office, for finding the above sound clip and this text:

The following is from the Washington and Lee University 250th anniversary
timeline under the year 1910:

Thornton W. Allen '13 publishes The Washington and Lee Swing. The chorus
originated with Mark W. Sheaf '06L of South Dakota, who taught the tune to
members of the guitar club in 1906. C. A. Robbins '11 wrote words and Allen
composed additional music for the verses. The song caught on and by 1924, is
popular all over the country, "being sung, played, and danced to in every
important city from coast to coast," according to the Alumni Magazine.

And under 1924:
More than fifty colleges have written for permission to adapt The Washington
and Lee Swing as their fight song, but Tulane University tries to claim it
as its own, calling it the "Tulane Swing." William B. Wisdom '21, an irate
W&L alumnus, writes to the New Orleans newspaper that W&L students "regard
The Swing as a sacred trust, and the singing of it has become almost a
religious rite. It has long been traditional for the students to stand with
bared heads whenever The Swing is heard, and it is the song invoked when the
team is in sore straits as well as when it is on top of the score."

The original words (from somewhere else):
When Washington and Lee's men fall in line 
They're bound to win again another time 
For W-L I yell, I yell, I yell 
And for the university I yell like hell 
So fight, fight, fight, fight, fight for every yard 
Circle the ends and hit the line right hard 
And roll the enemy upon the sod, yes by god 
RAH! RAH! RAH! 

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(Last updated 19 June 1999)