"Fight Fiercely, Harvard" is a satirical

college A college (Latin: ''collegium'') is an educational institution or a constituent part of one. A college may be a degree-awarding tertiary educational institution, a part of a collegiate or federal university, an institution offerin ...

fight song A fight song is a rousing short song associated with a sports team. The term is most common in the United States and Canada. In Australia, Mexico, and New Zealand these songs are called the team anthem, team song, or games song. First associated ...

written and originally performed by

Tom Lehrer Thomas Andrew Lehrer (; born April 9, 1928) is an American former musician, singer-songwriter, satirist, and mathematician, having lectured on mathematics and musical theater. He is best known for the pithy and humorous songs that he recorded in ...

and dedicated to his alma mater,

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

.
Fight Fiercely, Harvard The song was written in 1945 while Lehrer was in his second year of study at

Harvard College Harvard College is the undergraduate college of Harvard University, an Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636, Harvard College is the original school of Harvard University, the oldest institution of higher lea ...

. Tom Lehrer: The Elements

History

The song was Lehrer's earliest—and for a while his only—musical work and was included on '' Songs by Tom Lehrer'', a debut album recorded at Trans Radio Studios,

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

, on January 22, 1953. Starting with a

press run Print circulation is the average number of copies of a publication. The number of copies of a non-periodical publication (such as a book) are usually called print run. Circulation is not always the same as copies sold, often called paid circulat ...

of 400 copies of the then-novel 10" LP record format produced by Lehrer at his own expense, these records were sold in stores around Harvard Square. In speaking about "Fight Fiercely, Harvard" and the rest of his satirical repertoire that brought him a certain level of fame as an

undergraduate Undergraduate education is education conducted after secondary education and before postgraduate education. It typically includes all postsecondary programs up to the level of a bachelor's degree. For example, in the United States, an entry-le ...

, Lehrer says he did not write to gain popularity but rather:

I mostly thought these songs weren’t of interest to anyone! I wrote ‘Fight Fiercely, Harvard’ in 1945. That’s the earliest song on any of my records. The others were written a little later. I wrote a lot of songs for special occasions ... silly songs, songs about math, and so on, but nothing else that would be recordable until 1948. Tom Lehrer the Man, His Myth and his Music?
by Odell Hathaway; September 19, 1992; via archive.org

Lehrer has also said of his undergraduate

songwriting A songwriter is a musician who professionally composes musical compositions or writes lyrics for songs, or both. The writer of the music for a song can be called a composer, although this term tends to be used mainly in the classical music gen ...

The only one of those songs that eventually made it into my repertoire was 'Fight Fiercely, Harvard,' which was written in 1945 and shows it. I started singing these songs at parties, but never with the intention of their becoming commercial.

Lehrer later responded to rumors that he had stopped performing because the displeasure of Harvard University's administration over the satirical lyrics of "Fight Fiercely, Harvard" threatened to ruin his career, by saying:

...my stimulus came from humor however grim the humor may have been at the base. I wasn't burning when I wrote these songs...it amazes me that anyone would think a song making fun of the football team was grounds for expulsion.

Today "Fight Fiercely, Harvard" lives on in the repertoire of the

Harvard University Band The Harvard University Band (HUB) is the official student band of Harvard University. The Harvard Wind Ensemble, the Harvard Summer Pops Band, and the Harvard Jazz Bands also fall under the umbrella organization of HUB. Currently, the band plays f ...

Harvard University Band and was included on their 75th anniversary album released in 1995. The song remains fairly well known in the Harvard community. On visiting Harvard for the first time in decades, Lehrer was pleased to find that his song had been performed at every home football game for many years.

Theme

The humor of "Fight Fiercely, Harvard" revolves around the supposedly refined and gentlemanly nature of Harvard athletes. As it appears on ''Tom Lehrer Revisited'', a live album, it is preceded by banter almost as long as the song itself. In talking to his audience, Lehrer explains that he wanted to create a college fight song different from those performed, as he says with a hypercorrective use of a

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

plural The plural (sometimes abbreviated pl., pl, or ), in many languages, is one of the values of the grammatical category of number. The plural of a noun typically denotes a quantity greater than the default quantity represented by that noun. This de ...

for a common

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

word, "in comparable '' stadia''." This preamble also says, in part:

...I was reminded not too long ago, upon returning from my lesson with the
Scrabble ''Scrabble'' is a word game in which two to four players score points by placing tiles, each bearing a single letter, onto a game board divided into a 15×15 grid of squares. The tiles must form words that, in crossword fashion, read left t ...
pro at the Harvard Club in Boston, of the days of my undergraduacy long ago when there used to be these very long Saturday afternoons in the fall with nothing to do - the library was closed - just waiting around for the cocktail parties to begin. And on occasions like that...did come to realize that the football fight songs that one hears...have a tendency to be somewhat uncouth, and even violent, and that it would be refreshing, to say the least, to find one that was a bit more genteel. And here it is, dedicated to my own alma mater, and called Fight Fiercely, Harvard.

The lyrics are written with an exaggeratedly erudite style of

diction Diction ( la, dictionem (nom. ), "a saying, expression, word"), in its original meaning, is a writer's or speaker's distinctive vocabulary choices and style of expression in a poem or story.Crannell (1997) ''Glossary'', p. 406 In its common meanin ...

and say in part:

Fight fiercely, Harvard!
Fight, fight, fight!
Demonstrate to them our skill.
Albeit they possess the might,
Nonetheless we have the will.

The lyrics also refer to celebrating victory by inviting the "whole team up for

tea Tea is an aromatic beverage prepared by pouring hot or boiling water over cured or fresh leaves of ''Camellia sinensis'', an evergreen shrub native to East Asia which probably originated in the borderlands of southwestern China and north ...

" and conscientiously warn "let's try not to injure them." Lehrer, who is actually

Jew Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""T ...

ish and from

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

, performed the song in the stereotypical

Boston Brahmin accent Eastern New England English, historically known as the Yankee dialect since at least the 19th century, is the traditional regional dialect of Maine, New Hampshire, and the eastern half of Massachusetts. Features of this variety once spanned an eve ...

of his on-stage

persona A persona (plural personae or personas), depending on the context, is the public image of one's personality, the social role that one adopts, or simply a fictional character. The word derives from Latin, where it originally referred to a theatr ...

and pronounced the words "fiercely" and "Harvard" with a

non-rhotic Rhoticity in English is the pronunciation of the historical rhotic consonant by English speakers. The presence or absence of rhoticity is one of the most prominent distinctions by which varieties of English can be classified. In rhotic variet ...

drawl A drawl is a perceived feature of some varieties of spoken English and generally indicates slower, longer vowel sounds and diphthongs. The drawl is often perceived as a method of speaking more slowly and may be erroneously attributed to laziness ...

. He also injected exclamations such as "...and ''do'' fight fiercely!"
The Village Voice

References

{{Tom Lehrer Harvard University American college songs College fight songs in the United States Ivy League fight songs American songs Comedy songs Songs written by Tom Lehrer Satirical songs

External links

*A sample of the Harvard University Band's version of "Fight Fiercely, Harvard" can be downloaded fro
tomlehrer.orgaudio and lyrics to Harvard fight songs
Harvard University Band

History

Theme

See also

References

External links