Attention, music majors. The time has come for you to finally garner respect in the eyes of your fellow students. Yes, shocking as it may seem, frightening as life outside of Humanities may be, I say again: It is your time. This is your D-Day, your march on Washington, your surprise victory in a no-holds-barred steel cage match.
UW needs a new fight song, and you're just the nerds for the job.
This is different than when I called on the College of Engineering to build a better kegerator. Nor is this like my campaign last fall, \English Majors: Shut the hell up."" The matter of our fight song is far more serious. It is our battle cry, whether at Camp Randall, the Kohl Center, or at bizarre, unpopular events such as the All-Campus Party.
Our current fight song is outdated. According to the UW Marching Band Web site, the tune and lyrics were composed in 1909. That's old. I have nothing against tradition per se, but old must give way to new. Wagons to cars, trains to planes, telegraph to e-mail, the War on Drugs to the War on Terror.
What makes ""On Wisconsin"" outdated is that it doesn't capture the campus spirit, namely hatred. Our campus is a patchwork of groups who hate one another.
Out-of-state students, for example, hate the Board of Regents for hiking already high out of state tuition. And the Regents hate campus journalists, who want nothing more than to uncover the Board's corruption. Campus journalists hate students who read USA Today and watch TV news.
Students who read USA Today and watch TV news think everything in America is fine and dandy, and thus hate campus activists. Campus activists reciprocate this hatred, but also hate students who go to Starbuck's. (There is some overlap between the latter group and the USA Today readers, but not complete.)
Students who go to Starbuck's hate everything, and screech about it into their cell phone on the way to class. I hate these students. The Evan's Scholars hate me. Sororities and fraternities hate the Evan's Scholars. Hippies hate the sororities and fraternities. The men's crew team hates hippies.
And yet we all unite behind our hatred for other universities, particularly Big Ten schools. That is what ""On Wisconsin"" fails to communicate. We want to kill these schools. Now, before you and various anal-retentive campus officials get all riled up, allow me to clarify. I don't mean kill in the violent, twisted, invite them to our basement and stab them with an ice-pick sense. I mean the helpful, selfless, make-them-think- they-have-a-terminal-illness-and- supply-the-suicide-drugs kind of killing.
Another problem with ""On Wisconsin"" is its misleading football references. ""On Wisconsin! On Wisconsin! Plunge right through that line! Run the ball clear down the field, a touchdown sure this time."" This does not accurately depict the atmosphere at Camp Randall. Football Saturdays are when students and alumni come together to get raucously drunk. A more fitting phrasing would be, ""On Wisconsin! On Wisconsin! Plunge that puke-clogged john! Push the flask way down your pants, which, surprisingly, you still have on.""
So we're counting on you, music majors. We need a spicier tune with gritty, honest lyrics. I would only point out that Wisconsin rhymes with Charles Bronson.
Louie can be reached at chunkkicke@hotmail.com.
