I'll Stand By My 10,000 Men

Today is Harvard spirit day. Isn't everyone excited? If you go to the soccer or football game, you could get free hot chocolate and win big prizes! Or you could sit with several hundred other people and get cold.

I used to be big on that stuff when I was a first-year. I went to Harvard football games, and I didn't even need hot liquid enticements or band raffles. I just liked to go.

At Harvard sports events, I was looking for a replacement--back in Nebraska where I come from, college football is big. Very big. But I didn't think I'd be homesick for the Big-Eight: In Cambridge, I told myself, I'd quickly find the festive "Saturday means Game Day" atmosphere I'd known at home. I assumed I'd learn Harvard's soul-stirring fight songs (surely there had to be dozens), songs that would rival "Hail Varsity" and "There is No Place Like Nebraska" for punchy go-team spunk.

Though it didn't come close to Big-Eight Conference hoopla, I discovered that Harvard football could be fun. I was awed by the alums' brie-and-wine tailgate parties. I liked the crisp October weather. I loved the fried dough. And I kind of liked listening to the band, although I had trouble understanding the lyrics to what appeared to be Harvard's one-and-only school song.

An upstairs neigbor rescued my roommates and me from school song illiteracy. As a sax-carrying member of the Harvard Band, he knew the secret lyrics to "10,000 Men of Harvard." And so in the common room of Lionel B-12, my bandie neighbor patiently taught us the sacred words.

By the time hockey season came, we were ready. Whenever the band started up "10,000 Men," we shrieked the words at the top of our lungs. Other spectators started at us, rolled their eyes and muttered "freshmen."

Even later, when hockey season had been over for months, we considered using "10,000 Men" on our answering machine message. It would have been something along the lines of, "10,000 men at Harvard...want to talk to...B-12..."

Now a Spirit Committee wants to come up a new fight song, "a more modern melody," a little ditty that has a "more innovative style and rhythmic beat to match the musical tastes of the '90s sports fan," as The Crimson reported recently. A song, in other words, with a wicked groove and a beat we can cheer to.

I don't know about this. Sure, "10,000 Men" excludes women. Yes, the "let's stomp Eli" sentiment is militaristic. And in terms of style it's more analagous to "The Lawrence Welk Show" than "Hangin' With MTV."

But is '90s what we want in a school song? Say Harvard's Spirit Committee does go ahead and delve into the world of synthesized, syncopated pop in search of school spirit. What on earth would they come up with? What could I come up with, for that matter?

Icame up with the realization that Harvard digs Madonna. To really capture the essence of this institution, the Spirit Committee might consider something like the following, especially for football season:

(To the tune of "Like a Prayer"):

"Do We Have a Prayer"

...I close my eyes

oh god, I think we're winning!

we drop the ball

I close my eyes...

heaven help us

(refrain) In the kickoff hour

we can feel their power

Do we have a prayer

Do we even care...

The Spirit Committee, which is thinking of providing proctors with cassettes of school songs, must think that first-years are prime targets for rah-rah Harvard mania.

They probably have the right idea. When I was a first-year, Harvard made me downright giddy. And so I think a special "First Year's Edition" of a school song might be in order:

(To the tune of "Groove is in the Heart"):

"Groove is in the Yard" The thrills Harvard spills up my back

keep me filled

with satisfaction; (first year's fun!)

apprehension of what's to come...

"What's to come" in the next three years sometimes makes school spirit hard to muster.

Perhaps facing our fears through music would be a kind of healing process. Maybe a school song needs to reflect our deepest problems in order to truly capture our character:

(To the tune of "Let's Talk About Sex"):

"Let's Deconstruct Sex"

Let's deconstruct sex, baby

let's angst about you and me

Let's talk about all the great dates at this school

that just won't be...

There was one recent hit that I simply had to try out for a Harvard fight song; the title was just asking for it. I discovered that with a little lyric-tampering, Harvard could become the only institution of higher learning with a school song that promotes slam-dancing:

(To the tune of "Smells Like Teen Spirit")

"Smells Like Harvard Spirit"

I found it hard,

so hard to grind

oh well,

whatever, never mind...

(refrain) Here we are now

Educate us

I feel stupid,

yet pretentious

here we are now

educate us...yeah...(etc.)

I quickly got discouraged with song adaptation. In their original forms, these songs are hits, but as school songs they really miss. About the only thing going for them is that they're danceable.

"10,000 Men," on the other hand, sounds more ancient, more antique, more Harvard. After all, this school was founded by Puritans, not 20th-century disc jockeys.

If Harvard students aren't going to football games, raving about this top-of-the-charts education or getting teary-eyed as they pass through Johnston Gate, it's not because of the school song. It's because we like to complain, it's because we're too lazy to cross the river, it's because we think too much. But it's not the fault of "10,000 Men."

"10,000 Men" sounds so outdated that it ought to pull us together in its very corniness. Harvard is old, and overflowing with tradition. As the nation's first university, we're probably the last school in the nation that ought to be rewriting our fight song.

And another thing. The music industry can be vicious. If we retain the non-pop "10,000 Men," we'll avoid the wrath of Casey Kasem and the ever-fickle public tastes.

We've been able to stay "number one" according to US News and World Report. But how long could a new and improved school song stay on top of another major magazine's rankings--namely, Billboard?