The Victors

"The Victors" is the fight song of the University of Michigan.[1] Michigan student Louis Elbel wrote the song in 1898 after the football team's victory over the University of Chicago, which clinched an undefeated season and the Western Conference championship.

For other uses, see The Victors (disambiguation).

The Victors
Sheet music cover
Fight song of the University of Michigan
Also known as"Hail to the Victors"
LyricsLouis Elbel, 1898
MusicLouis Elbel, 1898
Audio sample
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An abbreviated version of the song, based on its final refrain, is played at University of Michigan sporting events and functions. "The Victors" is considered one of the greatest college fight songs ever written.[1][2][3][4]

History

"The Victors" was written by University of Michigan student Louis Elbel in 1898 following the 12–11 football victory over the University of Chicago that clinched the Western Conference championship on Thanksgiving at Chicago's Stagg Field.[2][5] Singing "There'll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight" after the game—then considered school's unofficial fight song[6]—Elbel felt the event should be "dignified by something more elevating for this was no ordinary victory."[2] With that in mind, Elbel wrote "The Victors" in the style of a military march on the train ride back to Ann Arbor.[7]

Elbel and a student orchestra made the first public performance of "The Victors" on April 5, 1899, during A Night Off, an on-campus undergraduate musical. It was received well, with the audience requesting an encore.[7] Three days later in Ann Arbor, the song was performed during a concert by United States Marine Band leader and "March King" John Philip Sousa. Sousa held the song in high regard: "No one but a master of counterpoint could have conceived the splendid harmony that marks the composition throughout," the bandleader said.[8]

After Michigan temporarily withdrew from the Western Conference in 1907, a new Michigan fight song, "Varsity," was written in 1911 because the line "champions of the West" was no longer applicable.[6][9] Both songs were popular, but with Michigan's reentry to the Western Conference in 1917, followed by an undefeated football season in 1918, "The Victors" was readopted permanently.[10]

During World War I, both German and French military bands played the song. The U.S. 125th Infantry Band played the song in 1918 as Michigan soldiers entered defeated Germany.[7] In the 1920s, an alternate set of lyrics were penned by an unknown author.[7]

Elbel returned for Michigan's homecoming yearly to lead the band in playing "The Victors" until his death in 1959. In 1961, the Michigan Band went on a world tour in 31 countries with "The Victors" as a selection played.[7]

Authorship

Elbel copyrighted "The Victors" in early 1899.[11] In 1983, Michigan marching band alumnus George Anderson found that the song's trio bore a strong resemblance to George Rosenberg's "The Spirit of Liberty March," which was copyrighted in 1898. Jim Henriksen, another band alumnus, wrote "The Authorship of 'The Victors March'" paper covering the various theories about the similarities indicating that none would be proved to be true. Former U-M Band Alumni president Joseph Dobos considered Elbel the only author, which received support from Bill Studwell, author of College Fight Songs: An Annotated Anthology, as many composers borrowed from each other. Dobos also wrote the "Did Louis Elbel Write 'The Victors'?" essay for the band alumni publication M-Fanfare fall 2007 issue indicating that Victors was more "tightly composed" than "Spirit" and was a "circus" march while "Spirit" was a "two-step."[11]

Uses and performances
Louis Elbel conducting the Michigan Marching Band in "The Victors," 1958

Various versions of the song are used at UM functions, including three versions the marching band often plays at football games, a calypso version named "Calyptors," a Dixieland version titled the "Hoover Street Rag," named after the band's home, Revelli Hall on E. Hoover Ave., and "El Victors Caliente," a Latin arrangement by previous director Scott Boerma. Additional arrangements in blues and waltz styles have also historically been played.

The chorus of the song ("Hail! to the victors valiant," etc.) is played at all University of Michigan sports competitions, as well as many UM band events, first-year student orientation and welcoming events, and graduation commencement ceremonies. Many attendees will stand when it is played, sing along and clap in rhythm until the chorus when, at each repetition of the word "Hail!," they include a thrusting in the air of fists. This fist-raising has become well-accepted as an indication of school spirit. Attendees at sports events have started to yell the phrase "Go Blue!" at the conclusion of the chorus. Attendees at hockey games have commonly inserted "Let's Go Blue!" between the two stanzas of the chorus after "leaders and best" and then conclude with "Go Blue!" When hockey games started play at Yost Ice Arena attendees have begun adopting the abbreviated football game version but continue to include "Let's Go Blue!" and conclude with "Go Blue!"

The popularity of UM athletics and "The Victors" has prompted the song being used by the University of Michigan in its advertising. Commercials for the University of Michigan Health System's "The Michigan Difference" campaign have featured the words to the chorus of "The Victors" over pictures of children in hospital beds, amputees and post-surgical patients living active lives, and doctors performing surgery. The musical accompaniment to these commercials is a light chamber orchestra/pop rendition of the fight song.[12] The University started using a softer version in its TV commercials for U-M Health System starting in 2008.[11]

The University of Michigan's Flint campus selected "The Victors" as their sports nickname in an unofficial student vote in 2008.[13][14][15]

Michigan alumnus Gerald R. Ford, the 38th President of the United States, often had the Naval band play the fight song prior to state events instead of "Hail to the Chief."[16] He also selected the song to be played during his December 2006 funeral procession at the U.S. Capitol.[17] The Michigan Marching Band played this march for him one final time when his casket arrived at the Gerald R. Ford International Airport in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Legacy

The Bleacher Report named the song the number one college fight song in 2011.[1] In 2014, the USA Today College Football Fan Index named "The Victors" the number one fight song,[2] but it fell to third place in 2015.[18] While in 2015, NFL.com named it number two on its top 15 of college fight songs.[19]

Michigan alumnus and composer Charles D. Kountz gave an account that in 1905, John Philip Sousa told him that "The Victors" was "one of the nation's finest military marches and the best original college song" he had ever heard.[7]

References
  1. Daughters, Amy (October 12, 2011). "Ranking the Top 50 College Football Fight Songs". Bleacher Report. Turner Sports. Retrieved October 1, 2016.
  2. Siegel, Alan (September 1, 2014). "The 10 best fight songs in college football of 2014". Sports. USA Today. Archived from the original on June 23, 2015. Retrieved October 8, 2019.
  3. Siegel, Alan (October 24, 2015). "The top 10 fight songs in college football". Fan Index. USA Today. Retrieved September 30, 2016.
  4. Huguenin, Mike (June 23, 2015). "15 for '15: College football's best fight songs". National Football League. Retrieved October 1, 2016.
  5. Shaker, Clay (September 21, 1998). "'The Victors!' turns 100 years old". The Michigan Daily. Archived from the original on February 13, 2007. Retrieved March 6, 2007.
  6. Dickson, James (November 4, 2009). "Talk of the Town: Hail to the Victors – a borrowed song?". AnnArbor.com. Mlive Media Group. Retrieved September 5, 2017.
  7. "Who's No. 1? Fight Songs". Excerpt from Kryk, John (2004). Natural Enemies: Major College Football's Oldest, Fiercest Rivalry—Michigan vs. Notre Dame. Lanham, MD: Taylor Trade Pub. pp. 242–245.
  8. ""The Victors" Hailed Michigan Victory". The Detroit Free Press. November 9, 1930. p. 78.
  9. Michigan Marching Band. "The Eugene Fischer Years: 1906–1914". Regents of the University of Michigan. Archived from the original on March 31, 2012. Retrieved April 9, 2012.
  10. Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan Athletics History 1918 Football Team
  11. Leslie, Dale (August 31, 2008). "Whose Victors? Did Louis Elbel Copy Part of Another March?". Ann Arbor News.
  12. "The Michigan Difference". University of Michigan Health System. Retrieved June 18, 2009.
  13. Mostafavi, Beata (September 22, 2008). "Sports talk at University of Michigan–Flint sparks more mascot consideration". Flint Journal. Archived from the original on May 17, 2009. Retrieved October 29, 2008.
  14. Morland, Mike (May 28, 2008). "U-M-Flint closer to selecting mascot". University Record Online. Retrieved April 9, 2012.
  15. Shoup, Allison (April 25, 2008). "'Victors' not yet a sure thing". The Michigan Times. Archived from the original on August 12, 2014. Retrieved April 9, 2012.
  16. Rozell, Mark J. (October 15, 1992). The Press and the Ford Presidency. University of Michigan Press. p. 38. ISBN 0-472-10350-4..
  17. Kornblut, Anne E. (December 29, 2006). "Ford Arranged His Funeral to Reflect Himself and Drew in a Former Adversary". The New York Times.
  18. Siegel, Alan (October 24, 2015). "The top 10 fight songs in college football". Fan Index. USA Today. Retrieved September 30, 2016.
  19. Huguenin, Mike (June 23, 2015). "15 for '15: College football's best fight songs". National Football League. Retrieved October 1, 2016.
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