History of the song

The song in its present form was composed in 1900 and is generally attributed to Allan M. Hirsh, Yale Class of 1901, who in a 1930 letter claimed to have written it in collaboration with his classmates F. M. Van Wicklen, Albert Marckwald, and James L. Boyce in the fall of 1900. Though the claim was disputed by Marckwald (who was credited with the tune in the 1901 Class Book) and others, the weight of the evidence (including several articles in the Yale Alumni Weekly from 1900 and 1901) supports Hirsh's claim.

However, the song appears to be based on an earlier one, "La Hoola Boola" (1898), by Robert Allen "Bob" Cole and Billy Johnson, "extremely popular African American singer-songwriters of the time." When the first piano edition of "Yale Boola" appeared in 1901, it included a notice "Adapted by permission of Howley, Haviland & Dresser" (the successor publisher of "La Hoola Boola"), and Hirsh himself said in his 1930 letter: "The song was not altogether original with us, but was undoubtedly adapted from some other song but we were unable to definitively designate this song, although later on we did discover that there had been published a song, which at that time was out of print, called 'La Hula Boola,' and the air was quite similar but the time was different."

The song immediately caught on, soon being played by John Philip Sousa

John Philip Sousa

John Philip Sousa was an American composer and conductor of the late Romantic era, known particularly for American military and patriotic marches. Because of his mastery of march composition, he is known as "The March King" or the "American March King" due to his British counterpart Kenneth J....

; it sold more sheet music in the first half of 1901 than any other song in the country, and became indelibly associated with Yale athletics.

The tune of "Boola Boola" is used in the University of Oklahoma's fight song, "Boomer Sooner

Boomer Sooner

The Boomer Sooner Fight Song is the fight song for the University of Oklahoma written by Arthur M. Alden in 1905. The tune is taken from "Boola Boola", the fight song of Yale University...

."

Lyrics

Well, here we are, well, here we are!

Just watch us rolling up a score.

We'll leave poor Harvard behind so far,

They won't want to play us anymore.

We'll roll the score so very high,

That you will hear them sigh:

Well-a Boola, Boo, Boola, Boola, Boo,

Boola, Boo, Boola, Boola, Boola, Boo!

Boola, Boola, Boola, Boola,

Boola, Boola, Boola, Boola,

When we "rough-house" poor old Harvard,

They will holler Boola Boo. (Rah! Rah! Rah!)

Yale, Eli Yale!

Oh! Yale, Eli Yale!

Oh! Yale, Eli Yale!

Oh! Yale, Eli Yale!

External links

• Fred R. Shapiro, "You can quote them," Yale Alumni Magazine, September/October 2009.
• Philip Hirsh, "The Secret Source of that Silly Tune," Yale Alumni Magazine, October 2000.
• mp3 files of "La Hoola Boola" and "Boola Boola."