Yea Alabama...somethings troubling me.

[LoudBamaFan]

The 1990 School of Music CD has the band and the University Singers on it singing it correctly with "drown 'em tide" as the words. And they sang it WELL might I add.

In 1998, the band people felt it unnecessary to 1) have the sung part sound decent by having a bunch of kids who could barely carry a tune sing the fight song, 2) actually sing the correct words.

I guess they thought a professional sound wasn't very important. It was bad. I hope they do it right next time.

 

[Spot Dailey]

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">What the heck is a Chellow Yacket? </font>

Jammer, I've got this Phillipino friend named Julio. He's also a neighbor of mine. One Sunday afternoon I saw him all dressed up for his daughter's Communion. He was wearing a yellow jacket and white pants, looking very tropical and festive. I said "looking good Julio". He said "you like my chellow yacket Juan". Since then any and all Yellow Jackets are "Chellow Yackets".

 

[JessN]

There's all sorts of weirdness surrounding our theme song.

The words got changed in the late 1970s, because I learned the song as the "Crimson Tide" version and had to change later when I realized that I'd been singing incorrect lyrics.

The original re-write also takes the line "Dixie's football pride" and changes it to "Bama's football pride." Someone was getting a jump on political correctness even back then.

The original lyrics were written by Ethelred Sykes, and the tune was different altogether. The band played the original tune last year as part of the pregame.

Sykes (or Sikes, can't remember the spelling) was a Phi Kappa Sigma at Alabama and wrote the lyrics on a piano at the fraternity house, which used to sit two doors down from the DKE house. The Phi Kappa Psi house got picked up and moved over there back in the mid-90s.

That's because the Phi Kappa Sigma house burned mysteriously around 1960. A few years later, I'm told Sykes' piano mysteriously resurfaced at the Lambda Chi Alpha house.

There's a real question now as to whether the Lambda Chi Alphas had a hand in the burning of the old Phi Kappa Sigma house. The event effectively killed off the Phi Kappa Sigmas; the last ones that I know of disappeared from campus about 1995 or so. Even if they didn't, it would be nice to know where that piano is and if it's at the Lambda Chi Alpha house, how it got there.


------------------
Jess Nicholas
Editor-In-Chief
TideFans.com