Ramblin' Wreck from Georgia Tech

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"Ramblin' Wreck from Georgia Tech"
Mike Greenblatt's 1911 arrangement
Fight song by Georgia Tech students
Published	1908
Released	1919
Writer	Billy Walthall[1][2]
Composer	Frank Roman, Michael A. Greenblatt, Charles Ives

"I'm a Ramblin' Wreck from Georgia Tech" is the fight song of the Georgia Institute of Technology, better known as Georgia Tech. The composition is based on "Son of a Gambolier", composed by Charles Ives 1895, and whose lyrics are based on an old English and Scottish drinking song of the same name.^[3] It first appeared in print in the 1908 Blueprint, Georgia Tech's yearbook. In 1947, the song was performed by the The Gordonaires in a Soundie entitled "Let's Sing A College Song".^[4] The song was later sung by Georgia Tech's Glee Club on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1953, and by Richard Nixon and Nikita Khrushchev during the 1959 Kitchen Debate. Also in 1959, the song was featured on the record "Party Sing Along With Mitch" by Mitch Miller.

"Ramblin' Wreck" is played after every Georgia Tech score (directly after a field goal/safety) and preceded by "Up With the White and Gold" after a touchdown in an American football game, and frequently during timeouts at basketball games.^[5][6][7]

The term "Ramblin' Wreck" has been used to refer to students and alumni of Georgia Tech much longer than the Model A now known as the Ramblin' Wreck has been in existence.^[8] The expression has its origins in the late 19th century and was used originally to refer to the makeshift motorized vehicles constructed by Georgia Tech engineers employed in projects in the jungles of South America. Other workers in the area began to refer to these vehicles and the men who drove them as "Rambling Wrecks from Georgia Tech."^[8]

[edit] Lyrics

A nickname for students at Georgia Tech is "Ramblin' Wreck," after the vehicle and school mascot shown here.

	Ramblin' Wreck from Georgia Tech A soundie based on "Ramblin' Wreck." Note the substitution of "heck" for "hell."
Problems listening to this file? See media help.

I'm a Ramblin' Wreck from Georgia Tech, and a hell of an engineer--
A helluva, helluva, helluva, helluva, hell of an engineer.
Like all the jolly good fellows, I drink my whiskey clear.
I'm a Ramblin' Wreck from Georgia Tech and a hell of an engineer.

Oh! If I had a daughter, sir, I'd dress her in White and Gold,
And put her on the campus to cheer the brave and bold.
But if I had a son, sir, I'll tell you what he'd do--
He would yell, 'To hell with Georgia!' like his daddy used to do.

Oh, I wish I had a barrel of rum and sugar three thousand pounds,
A college bell to put it in and a clapper to stir it round.
I'd drink to all the good fellows who come from far and near.
I'm a ramblin', gamblin', hell of an engineer!

[edit] Previous adaptations

The earliest rendition of the song is "Son of a Gambolier" (also known as "A Son of a Gambolier" and "The Son of a Gambolier"), which is a lament to one's own poverty; a gambolier is "a worthless individual given to carousing, gambling, and general moral depravity."^[9] The chorus goes:^[10]

Like every jolly fellow
I takes my whiskey clear,
For I'm a rambling rake of poverty
And the son of a gambolier.

The tune was first adapted as a school song by Dickinson College in southern Pennsylvania in the 1850s.^[9] Students at the college modified it to include a reference to their college bell by adding the following lyrics:^[9]

I wish I had a barrel of rum,
And sugar three hundred pounds,
The college bell to mix it in,
The clapper to stir it round

The song was subsequently adapted by the Colorado School of Mines in the late 1870s^[9] and entitled "The Mining Engineer."^[9][11] This version is the closest adaptation to "Ramblin' Wreck from Georgia Tech."^[12]

Like every honest fellow,
I take my whisky clear,
I'm a rambling wreck from Golden Tech,
a helluva engineer.

The Mines version also includes:

Oh, if I had a daughter
I'd dress her up in green,
And send her up to Boulder
To coach the football team
But if I had a son, sir,
I'll tell you what he'd do--
He'd yell: 'TO HELL WITH BOULDER!'
Like his daddy used to do.

In the early 1890s, Ohio State University adapted it and called it "If I had a Daughter." At the time Ohio Wesleyan University was their arch rival, hence the references to Delaware, Ohio and Methodists.The lyrics are as follows:^[9][13]

If I had a daughter, I'd dress her up in green,
I'd send her on the campus to coach the Freshman team;
And if I had a son, I tell you what he'd do
He would yell "To Hell" with Delaware"*
And yell for O. S. U.

If any you Methodist* brethren don't like Ohio's brass,
Come out upon the campus, we'll roll you in the grass;
Like every other good fellow, I like my whisky clear,
I'm a rollicking rake from Ohio State, and
A "Son-of-a-gun" for beer.

If I had a bottle I'd let fly out the cork,
I'd drink to old Ohio, the rest are on the pork,
And if I had a barrel, I'd be the same old skate,
I would be my bottom dollar on old Ohio State.

In 1895, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute adapted it and called it "A Son of Old R.P.I." This version includes the lyrics:^[9][14]

Like every honest fellow,
I drink my whiskey clear,
I'm a moral wreck from the Polytech
And a hell of an engineer.

Another verse sung at School of Practical Science (S.P.S. or "Skule") at the University of Toronto in the 1940s: When first I to Georgia came, I thought i knew it all. But now that I've been here a while, my pride has had a fall. I find I'll have to study for many a weary year, Before I am a graduate, a mechanical engineer.

Two different sources are claimed to have been the origin for the song's music. The first is the marching tune "The Bonnie Blue Flag", published in 1861 by Harry McCarthy.^[15][16] The second, and more widely cited, is Charles Ives' composition of "Son of a Gambolier" in 1895.^[17]

[edit] Creation at Georgia Tech

The first publication of "Ramblin' Wreck" was in the 1908 Blue Print, entitled "What Causes Whitlock to Blush." The words "hell" and "helluva" were too hot to print: at the bottom, it explains that "Owing to the melting of the type, it has been impossible to print the parts of the above song represented by blank spaces."

Georgia Tech's use of the song is said to have come from an early baseball game against rival Georgia.^[3][18][19] Some sources credit Billy Walthall, a member of the school's first four-year graduating class, with the lyrics.^[1][2] According to a 1954 article in Sports Illustrated, "Ramblin' Wreck" was written around 1893 by a Tech football player on his way to an Auburn game.^[1]

In 1905, Georgia Tech adopted the tune as its official fight song,^[9] in roughly the current form,^[vague] although it was the unofficial fight song for several years.^[3] It was published for the first time in the school's first yearbook, the 1908 Blueprint.^[3][6] Entitled "What causes Whitlock to Blush,"^[16] words such as "hell" and "helluva" were censored as "certain words [are] too hot to print."^[19]

After Michael A. Greenblatt, Tech's first bandmaster, heard the Georgia Tech band playing the song to the tune of Charles Ives's "A Son of a Gambolier",^[3] he wrote a modern musical version.^[2] In 1911, Frank Roman succeeded Greenblatt as bandmaster; Roman embellished the song with trumpet flourishes and publicized it.^[3][6] Roman copyrighted the song in 1919.^[1][2][20]

[edit] Rise to fame

Arthur Murray's 1920 Radio Dance, as portrayed in the 1920 Blueprint; "Ramblin' Wreck" was one of the songs played that night.

In 1920, dance instructor Arthur Murray organized the world's first "radio dance" while he attended Tech. A band on campus played "Ramblin' Wreck" and other songs, which were broadcast to a group of about 150 dancers (mostly Tech students) on the roof of the Capital City Club in downtown Atlanta.^[21] Murray also opened the first Arthur Murray Dance Studio while in Atlanta. It was located at the Georgia Terrace Hotel.^[22] In 1925, the Columbia Gramophone Company began selling a recording of Tech songs (including "Ramblin' Wreck"); Tech was one the first colleges in the Southern United States to have its songs recorded.^[1][2] The song became immensely popular and was known nationally because of its extensive radio play.^[3]

On October 11, 1953, Tech's glee club sang "Ramblin' Wreck" on Ed Sullivan's "Toast of the Town" program (later known as The Ed Sullivan Show) on CBS.^[23] The performance reached a television audience of approximately 30 million viewers.^[24] Because only 28 seats were available on the train to the show, glee club members auditioned for the available spots. The group prepared three songs-"Ramblin' Wreck," There's Nothin' Like a Dame, and the alma mater.^[24] Sullivan made them sing "heck" and "heckuva" instead of "hell" and "helluva," and wouldn't let them sing "dames." According to The Technique, "The club sang 'Dames' at rehearsal and brought down the house, only to have Sullivan give it the axe."^[24]

Then-Vice President Richard Nixon and Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev sang the song together when they met in Moscow in 1959 to reduce the tension between them during the Kitchen Debate.^{[3][6][25][26]} As the story goes, Nixon didn't know any Russian songs, but Khrushchev knew that one American song as it had been sung on the Ed Sullivan show.^[6]

"Ramblin' Wreck" has had many other notable moments in history, including being the first school song played in space.^[1] Gregory Peck sang the song while strumming a mandolin in the movie The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit. John Wayne whistled it in The High and the Mighty. Tim Holt's character sings a few bars of it in the movie His Kind of Woman. Gordon Jones sings a few stanzas several times in the movie My Sister Eileen. There are numerous stories of commanding officers in Higgins boats crossing the English Channel on the morning of D-Day leading their men in the song to calm their nerves.^[1]

[edit] Modern history

The Edwin H. Morris & Company obtained a copyright to Roman's version in 1931; that company was later acquired by Paul McCartney's holding company, MPL Communications in 1976.^[27] The copyright to that version expired in 1952, so Greenblatt wrote a new arrangement and applied for a new copyright. In 1953, Greenblatt sold the copyright for the new version to Georgia Tech for one dollar.^[3] There was some controversy when MPL Communications acquired the old copyright; a law firm commissioned by Georgia Tech in 1984, Newton, Hopkins & Ormsby, concluded that while there were copyrighted versions of the song, the version used by the school was not copyrighted and falls in the public domain.^[1][3]

In 1998, a 19-member "Diversity Task Force" proposed that changes be made to the fight song because it discriminated against women.^[16] The proposal was widely and strongly opposed by students and alumni,^{[28][29][30][31]} and it was dropped.^[32]

Over the years, a few variations of the song have been created at Georgia Tech. "To cheer the brave and bold" is often substituted with "To improve the ratio," "To raise the ratio," "To help the ratio," or "To boost the ratio" as a reference to the large ratio of undergraduate men to women.^{[citation needed]} Women, especially alumnae, often substitute "Like his daddy used to do." with "Like his mommy used to do."^{[citation needed]} At the conclusion of the song there is a call of "Go Jackets!" responded to with "Bust their ass!" Following three of these calls and responses, the song was ended with a call of "Go Jackets! Fight! Win!" Recently, however, the student body has yelled "Fight! Win! Drink! Get Naked!"^[12]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• ACC College Football Fight Songs with audio file of complete song
• Official Georgia Tech Athletics page on song (with audio file)
• Lyrics (from Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine, Winter 1992)