Chris' Songs - The Washington U Song Contest Winners

Here is an article from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch about the contest and the songs. The Wash U archives also have a blurb about them.

In the fall of '94, I heard from Jon Krivitzky (former Mosaic Whisper and Chamber Choir singer) that the Chamber Choir was putting together a song contest to generate new songs for a new Wash U Songbook. I later found out that there were to be two categories: a fight song, and a sentimental song. Well, I figured that I'd already done my fight song idea with Hail, Lady Bears, so I set out to do a sentimental song.

It went well enough. I got some good imagery for the first verse, and got a nice love story for the second verse, and got a traditional collegiate sound (shooting for that beautiful timeless Ivy sound, since Wash U tries to be an Ivy). I wrote it out, arranged it for four voices, got it all together, and finished it.

Our Dear Washington

A photo album long-sinced touched
Holds black-and-whites of old
Showing faces telling stories much like those that I have told
Their faces I don't recognize
But in their eyes I see
A common thread that leads us back to you.

From quiet moonlit walks on newly-fallen snow
To hard-fought games at Francis Field and parties on the Row
From burning midnight oil
To picnics in the sun
We'll never forget thee, our dear Washington

We met on the quad one day but little did we know
That, like the ivy on the walls, our love would always grow
Our lives have led us far away
But through it all we've shared
A common thread that leads us back to you.

From quiet moonlit walks on newly-fallen snow
To hard-fought games at Francis Field and parties on the Row
From burning midnight oil
To picnics in the sun
We'll never forget thee, our dear Washington.

I really enjoy singing the song to myself even now, and it has become one of my favorites of my songs.

Then I found out that the deadline had been extended. Around that time (or a little before), I listened to a cd that a med school buddy lent me of the Notre Dame Glee Club singing various songs, one of which was their fight song. If you haven't heard their fight song, you're missing out-- it's incredible. And then I looked again at Hail, Lady Bears, and realized that it wasn't really a fight song, it was more of a fight hymn. Gaining more courage and more steam, I started considering doing a fight song too.

Well, most of the fight song came to me very quickly one night as I was taking out my contact lenses. And I got to be clever, which is a lot of fun when writing songs.

Fight For Washington

They'll shake in their boots when they first see
Our myrtle and maroon
Well, there's "shake", probably influenced by that Notre Dame song. "Myrtle and maroon" is a nice little joke I snuck in. To read more about it, check out this archives page. I like the colors myrtle and maroon better than red and green, which to me looks less distinguished and sounds like Christmas. Besides, green doesn't rhyme with doom.
B-E-A-R-S spells "victory"
For them it will spell "DOOM"!
Of course, one of the jokes here is the old cheer of spelling the home team's name, which gets really old really fast, because it's boring to spell a word...and then they have to ask you what it spells! Duh... So, instead, I went with the little play on words. For us, it means we're gonna win (by the way, spelling "victory" was part of a swim team cheer we used to do), for them, it means, or "spells", doom (get it?!?).
So, fight! Fight! Show them your bite
And watch them come undone
Oh yeah, it's a fight song--gotta say "fight fight"! And, ah, let's start playing with the whole mascot thing. Why? Because we can. First, there's "show them your bite", which bears do to make their opponents afraid. Then, you have to start thinking about the end of the song, and rhyme to it. "...the Wash U Bears" was what I was thinking of at first, but then the only good line to rhyme I could think of was "And catch them unawares", which sounds a little old-fashioned to me. Plus, we, the fans, weren't fighting for the Wash U Bears, we were the Bears; we were fighting for Wash U. So, I ended it differently.
Just put up your paws and use your claws
And fight for Washington. Fight!
Can't have too many "fight!"s in a fight song. :) Paws, claws--lucky rhyme. And now we're fighting for the school. Ok, makes sense.

So, I took my name off of them (the submissions had to be anonymous) and turned them in. Of course, I was very interested to see how they'd do, especially because 1) I sang with the Chamber Choir for two years of college, and was their president my senior year, and 2) I knew a few of the people who were judging. John Stewart, the Chamber Choir director, I've known from WU days; Matt Cooper, who then was the assistant director, I sang with in Pikers and then lived with my senior year; and Dave Truman, then Chamber Choir president, I sang with in Chamber Choir. (The other two judges I didn't know.) I was, of course thrilled when I found out I won.

When it came time to perform them (they were to be debuted at the annual Chancellor's Concert), I found out that John Stewart had rearranged them quite a bit. He said that the way I'd arranged them broke a lot of voicing rules (music theory stuff). I liked some of his changes, but not others, and we agreed that we'd go over them if and when he puts them in a new WU Songbook (I'm not sure if this project has been scrapped).

So, I learned the songs with the Chamber Choir (yes, it is VERY strange to hear a group sing a song you have arranged, much less wrote), and sang them with them at the concert. My parents videoed it, and the video has all of the elements of a homemade video: my few-month-old nephew crying, my grandpa muttering, and, of course, a tuba being strategically placed so that I was the only person in the choir the camera CAN'T see!

What will become of these songs? Something, I hope. I hope the fight song is picked up by the pep band. I hope the Chamber Choir continues to sing the sentimental song (BOTH verses of it, not just the first verse like they did at the debut--can you believe that??!). I hope they don't get lost like the last fight song did, and forgotten like all of the school songs other than the alma mater (which is almost unknown by the students these days).

The songs are now owned by Washington University (part of the stipulation of the contest was that I give up all copyrights), but in my heart they're still mine. I know a songwriter is never supposed to give up copyrights to songs, but I made an exception, since I wouldn't have been able to enter the contest otherwise. Besides, it's not like they'd ever go top 40.

-Chris Tess

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chris@rarb.org