I note the recent announcement about the formation of a marching band. I presume that part of its standard repertoire will be school songs. So here is a repeat Spirit Day message from February 2006 about our school songs.
The first school song of which I am aware was "The Blue and White," composed by Ervin Swindell, with lyrics by S. A. Crabbe and published in 1918. Swindell was a local music teacher who had his own studio but taught part time at St. Ambrose. I don't know who Crabbe was. It is a peppy song in 6/8 time and begins, "Where mighty Mississippi flows,/ Where o'er the west wind blows,/ The oaken boughs swing to and fro,/ And spring birds come and sing and go/The old school stands; the old bell rings,/Whose echo in my heart still sings/Hurrah, Hurrah, St. Ambrose!/ Hurrah for the White and Blue!/Hurrah, Hurrah, for St. Ambrose!/Alma Mater, here's to you."
There is another verse. There were also special verses for the war, "When freedom called her sons around." There was a verse for the football team and one for commencement. The song was published as a piece of sheet music with a wonderful drawing of Ambrose Hall and the oak trees that became the dust jacket of A Great and Lasting Beginning.
In 1928, thirty-year-old Bernard Schultz came to St. Ambrose to study pre-medicine. In 1923-24 he had played alto sax and trumpet with the orchestra on board the ocean liner S.S. Leviathan, one of many orchestras of the Paul Whiteman organization. Later he led his own Crescent Orchestra which played and recorded in Chicago. When he came to St. Ambrose he revived the band, which had not had a leader for several years. He composed the "Victory March," "Here's to the team and victory."
There was another song from that era called "Go! St. Ambrose, go! St. Ambrose ever onward," but I don't know anything about it. In 1936 some members of the alumni association wanted an alma mater, a song that was a hymn of praise to St. Ambrose College, modeled on "Old Gold," the alma mater of the University of Iowa (and a better model they could not have picked!). The music department had already decided to use the melody, Finlandia, by the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius, and in November 1936, it announced a contest for the lyrics to accompany it. The faculty of the English department agreed to serve as judges.
In May 1937, William Kerrigan, a senior from Davenport, was declared the winner for the lyrics you all sing so beautifully at commencement ceremonies. Kerrigan wrote a second verse which is rarely sung and he composed a special third verse in memory of Vic Pahl, a popular student and star athlete who was killed in an automobile accident in 1935: "Your ivied bell tower with its cross on high,/That one time tolled the death of Vic Pahl,/Still rings our victories, and at its call,/ When Ambrose shouts its battle cry,/Vic Pahl in helmet watches from the sky/The men of Ambrose-victors all."
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