Kid Pan Alley: Music

• MP3 short clip, hi-fi play (broadband)
• MP3 short clip, lo-fi play (modem)

I walked into class and the kids were all excited because someone's mom had found the school fight song which had been lost for 30 years. We made up this great Randy Newman-esque song. Our neighbor, John Bourgeois, former Director of the US Marine Band, arranged the brass sections and conducted the HS Band on it.

Twenty years ago, we lost the fight song.
It was in a bad key, and no one would sing along.
Our voices changed, we forgot the words.
We sang out of tune like a bunch of nerds,
Like a jay bird.

refrain
It’s Rappahannock, It’s Rappahannock!
The pride of every student here.
So all you panthers, make all your chants heard,
And raise a mighty cheer.
We’ve got the spirit, and you can hear it
So, shout it loud and clear.
Yeah, shout hooray, it’s the panther way!
Hail, Rappahannock, Hail!

We lost the fight song, we lost the football team.
Nobody fought and we were losers anyway.
We were pacifists and we were lazy bums.
We just watched TV like a bunch of slugs,
Twiddlin’ our thumbs.
Refrain:

Twenty years later, we found the fight song.
It was in Mrs. Tupper’s file, she had filed it wrong.
We changed the key, we threw out the TV.
We were undefeated with our basketball team
Beyond our wildest dreams
Refrain: