Prior to this year, there were not lyrics for the Fight Song. If it weren’t for the Alma Mater, there would be nothing to sing along to at games, or cheer as the team rushed onto the field, or court. Student Council came up with and promoted the Fight Song contest in order to create lyrics for the song in a school-wide, interactive way.
“When you’re starting a new school, you’re trying to create a culture. Music can help you build a culture,” said Choir Director Randy Erwin.
Although it has been ten years since the school’s opening, it wasn’t too late to find lyrics for the Fight Song and continue to build this culture.
The contest started with a suggestion from Student Council member Peyton Wood that a Fight Song was necessary. From there, a prize was decided, a $100 dollar gift card to Marketplace and two free tickets to the Homecoming dance, and advertisements were posted throughout the school by Student Council.
“I thought it would be a good way for me to start out as the new Student Council sponsor,” said Rachel Cockrell. “It’s been ten years, it’s too long that we haven’t had lyrics so we just wanted to fix it.”
By the end of the contest on Sept. 26, there were 17 entries total. Each entry was given a number so the names of the students who entered would not come into play when deciding on the winner. These initial entries were narrowed down to 4 by a council of senior athletes and club members. The Fight Song was then chosen out of these top four by Mr. Erwin and Mr. Ford.
“The hard part is that most of the time a song is written with the words first, and then you put music to it. This is backwards, we already had the music, so you had to put words to the music,” said Mr. Erwin.
Some criteria for this judging consisted of the simplicity of the song, the whole school needs to be able to memorize it and sing along, as well as the content and how it fit the music. Dr. Brackett also asked that the lyrics not be specific to any one sport, they needed to be universal.
The winner ended up being, not a single student, but a group; Jazz band. Senior Alex O’Brien is a member of Jazz band, and entered individually as well. He was upset that his entry did not win, especially since it made it into the top four, but he agreed that Jazz band’s lyrics were better.
“I was really excited about it, I thought the song we had come up with was really good. Mr. Ford also promised us that he would use the prize to buy us all Marketplace,” said O’Brien.
Jazz band has plans to have Marketplace catered with their prize gift card, but there is no way that two free homecoming tickets could be divided between the many members of Jazz band.
“I don’t know about the homecoming tickets, maybe he’ll take his wife,” said O’Brien.
Having gone through the process of attempting to write a fight song for this contest, I know how hard it can be. However, the writing process of an individual is very different from that of a group.
“We all got together during one period of jazz band and all threw out ideas, one line at a time, and went through and picked the best ones,” said O’Brien.