History
The chorus was originally written in 1891 as part of a longer Gaelic warcry, by three Gaelic-speaking students: Donald Cameron, F.A. McRae, and another called MacLean, whose first name is not known. The rest of the song was written in 1898 by a student, Alfred Lavell, with the title and The Queen's College Colours after a disappointing loss to the University of Toronto in order to inspire the team. Currently, however, the second, third and fourth verses are rarely sung. In 1985 the original "Boys, go in and win" was changed to "Gaels, go in and win" to make the text gender neutral.
The song is often heard sung by students and alumni when the home team scores a point, goal, touchdown, etc. and at other school events. It is usually sung while forming a chain by linking arms behind each other's backs and performing a low-kicking can-can. The 1892 version uses the tune of the Battle Hymn of the Republic/John Brown's Body.
Additional stanzas that have fallen out of popular use made reference to historic victories over Yale University, rival McGill University, and the University of Toronto.
Read more about this topic: Oil Thigh
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“It gives me the greatest pleasure to say, as I do from the bottom of my heart, that never in the history of the country, in any crisis and under any conditions, have our Jewish fellow citizens failed to live up to the highest standards of citizenship and patriotism.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“Every member of the family of the future will be a producer of some kind and in some degree. The only one who will have the right of exemption will be the mother ...”
—Ruth C. D. Havens, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 13, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)
“I am ashamed to see what a shallow village tale our so-called History is. How many times must we say Rome, and Paris, and Constantinople! What does Rome know of rat and lizard? What are Olympiads and Consulates to these neighboring systems of being? Nay, what food or experience or succor have they for the Esquimaux seal-hunter, or the Kanaka in his canoe, for the fisherman, the stevedore, the porter?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)