The Yale Whiffenpoofs | |
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| Background information | |
| Genres | A cappella |
| Years active | 1909–present |
| Website | whiffenpoofs.com |
The Yale Whiffenpoofs is a collegiate a cappella singing group at Yale University. Established in 1909, it is the oldest such group in the United States. Best known for "The Whiffenpoof Song", [1] the group is composed of 14 senior students who compete for admission in the spring of their junior year. [2] Former members include Cole Porter and Jonathan Coulton.
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According to Whiffenpoof historian James M. Howard:
It was Goat Fowler who suggested we call ourselves The Whiffenpoofs. He had been tickled by the patter of one of the characters in a Victor Herbert musical comedy called "Little Nemo" which recently been running on Broadway. In a scene in which there was great boasting of terrific exploits in big game hunting and fishing, comedian Joseph Cawthorn told a fantastic tale of how he had caught a Whiffenpoof fish. It seems that Cawthorn had coined the word some years before when he and a fellow actor were amusing themselves by making up nonsense verses. One they particularly liked began: "A drivaling grilyal yandled its flail, One day by a Whiffenpoof's grave." Cawthorn recalled the verse in making up his patter for "Little Nemo" and put it into his act. Whether the word meant fish, flesh or fowl was irrelevant to our purpose when we chose it as our name. "Whiffenpoof" fitted in with our mood of free and exuberant fancy and it was adopted with enthusiasm.
The Whiffenpoofs' best-known alumnus may be Cole Porter, who sang in the 1913 line-up; the group often performs Porter songs in tribute.
The Whiffenpoofs have performed for generations at a number of venues, including Lincoln Center, the White House, the Salt Lake Tabernacle, Oakland Coliseum, Carnegie Hall and the Rose Bowl. The group has appeared on such television shows as Jeopardy! , The Today Show , Saturday Night Live , 60 Minutes , Gilmore Girls , The West Wing , and Glee . In December 2010, the group appeared on NBC's a cappella competition The Sing-Off ; they were eliminated fourth, on the second show.
During the school year, the Whiffenpoofs perform on Monday nights at Mory's, known more formally as Mory's Temple Bar, circulating from room to room. [3]
The Whiffenpoofs travel extensively during the school year and take a three-month world tour during the summer. The group's business manager and musical director, known in Whiffenpoof tradition respectively as the "Popocatepetl" and "Pitchpipe", [2] are chosen by members of the previous year's group. An alumni organization maintains close ties with the group.
"Aj lučka, lučka široká", a Czech folk song, is the traditional opening number in Whiffenpoofs concerts. [4] [5]
Women matriculated at Yale beginning in 1969, and votes on the subject of admitting women to the Whiffenpoofs took place starting in the 1970s. [6] Each vote denied female singers the opportunity to join the group. Women were allowed "show" auditions but were never "tapped" (chosen) for the group. As recently as November 20, 2016, the group voted against admitting women. [7] A record number of women turned out for the 2017 auditions. [8]
In early February 2018, the Whiffenpoofs announced (in a joint statement with their sister group Whim 'n Rhythm) that students of all genders would be eligible to audition. [9] Later that month, the group accepted its first female member, Sofía Campoamor. [10] The following year, the group accepted its second female member and first woman of color, Neha Bhatt. [11] In February 2021, the Whiffenpoofs selected their first non-male leader, Syd Bakal, as business manager for the '22 Whiffenpoofs. [12]
"The Whiffenpoof Song", the group's traditional closing number, is a four part male-voice choral song (TTBar.B) and was published in sheet music form in 1909. For the lyrics, Yale students Meade Minnigerode and George S. Pomeroy [1] [13] adapted Rudyard Kipling's poem "Gentlemen-Rankers". The poem had already been set to music by Tod B. Galloway (1863-1935; Amherst, 1885) and the sheet music copyrighted in 1909 and 1918 and again in 1936. [14]
In the lyrics, "Mory's" refers to Mory's Temple Bar, a restaurant next to the campus and especially hospitable to Yale undergraduates (it allowed them credit), and "Louie" to its owner (1898–1912), Louis Linder. [15] "Shall I Wasting" is shorthand for "Shall I Wasting in Despair", and "Mavourneen" stands for "Kathleen Mavourneen", both popular part-songs in the Victorian era.
The song has been recorded many times. It became a hit for Rudy Vallée in 1937 and in 1947 for Bing Crosby, credited to Bing Crosby with Fred Waring and The Glee Club (Decca 73940). It has also been recorded by Elvis Presley, Count Basie, Perry Como, Robert Merrill, Ray Conniff, Mitch Miller, the Ames Brothers, the Statler Brothers, the Sons of the Pioneers, Louis Armstrong, and countless others.
The chorus, as sung by flyers and crews of the U.S. Army Air Forces' daylight bombing effort during World War II, played a key role in the 1949 movie 12 O'Clock High. It is heard first in the background when Harvey Stovall (Dean Jagger) surveys the abandoned Archbury airfield in 1949, just before his flashback to 1942 begins. The men sing it quietly in the Officer's Club after the unit receives its first commendation, baffling Stovall and General Savage (Gregory Peck) with their subdued reaction: "They aren't celebrating the way kids ought to…" At the end of the film, when Stovall returns to the present, the refrain of "Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree" shifts with a flourish of trumpets to the remembered voices singing "We're poor little lambs..." which becomes a triumphant instrumental phrase and fanfare over "The End."
In the 1952 comedy film Monkey Business, the tune comes on the radio and Cary Grant starts singing it to Marilyn Monroe, who declares it "a silly song". Later, Ginger Rogers sings it to Grant and describes it as "our song". And later still, Grant sings it to Rogers when he is locked out of the hotel room.
In the 1952 film Road to Bali from Paramount Pictures, starring Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, and Dorothy Lamour, Hope and Crosby find themselves in front of a herd of sheep. They sing the first part of the song's chorus with the special effect sheep "choir" adding the ending "Baa!, Baa!, Baa!" Crosby remarks, "That was helpful, wasn't it?" and Hope retorts, "Fred Waring must have played through here", referring to Bing's hit single of the tune, which was backed by Waring and his Glee Club. [16]
The song is referenced in Donna Tartt's 1992 novel The Secret History.
The melody is the opening theme of the 1975 television series Baa Baa Black Sheep , a fictionalization of the World War II wartime exploits of the United States Marine Corps Marine Fighter Squadron VMF-214, ancestor of the Corps's present-day VMA-214 "Black Sheep" Squadron. "The Whiffenpoof Song" has long been associated with the VMA-214. One of the squadron's members, Paul "Moon" Mullen, adapted "The Whiffenpoof Song" for the squadron's use. [17] The squadron's badge features a gamboling black lamb that refers back to the song.
The Whiffenpoofs can be heard singing it in the 2006 movie The Good Shepherd , in the scene where Matt Damon's son tells him he wants to join the CIA.
In the play Serenading Louie by Lanford Wilson, performed at the Donmar Warehouse in London in 2010, the song is sung by the cast and by Bing Crosby.
During the song "Together Again" in the musical version of Young Frankenstein , Frederick Frankenstein confesses to Igor that he "was in fact the Whiffenpoof at Yale", which impresses Igor.
In The Simpsons episode "The Caper Chase", the Whiffenpoofs perform the song to Montgomery Burns, who offers the college a new library if he will have them killed.
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Musical satirist Tom Lehrer spoofed "The Whiffenpoof Song" as part of his song "Bright College Days". Lehrer, an instructor at Yale's traditional rival Harvard University, sings of "glasses raised on high" (at which point he removes his eyeglasses and holds them up) and of drinking a toast "to those we love the best", to rhyme with "we'll pass [which may mean 'pass the final exams' or 'die'] and be forgotten with the rest." He also sings "to the tables down at Mory's, wherever that may be...", evoking a laugh from the Harvard auditorium crowd at the live recording. [18]
In 1973, the Harvard Krokodiloes debuted a spoof, "The Krokenpoof Song", with Harvard-specific lyrics, tongue-in-cheek references, bawdy variations involving references to Whiffenpoofs and sheep, rhymes such as "We'll drink lemonade Drambuie" in place of "We will serenade our Louis", and ending with "Baa, baa, humbug!"
Mad produced parody lyrics of it that were reprinted in the 1973 book The Mad Sampler. Titled "The Hundred-Proofs Song", it suggested that rich students forgot about their studies and resorted to getting drunk at the bar, "...earning the grades we deserve, we know; – F – F – F!"
Louis Armstrong recorded a satirical version of the song, subtitled (or maybe alternatively titled) "The Boppenpoof Song", poking fun at the bebop movement in jazz. His friend Rudy Vallée contributed lyrics to that version.
The introduction and a parody of the first verse are sung by Betty Grable during the graduation scene in How to Be Very, Very Popular (1955).
A parody of the chorus was included in the Two Ronnies' barbershop sketch in 1978. [19]
The song serves as the basis for the University of Montevallo's Purple Side song, which is part of the College Night homecoming tradition.
The group adopted the Whiffenpoof emblem in 1912. Depicting a heraldic wyvern with mint leaves for wings, a horse's neck, and a swizzle stick for a perch,[ citation needed ] it was designed by a cartoonist from campus humor magazine The Yale Record . [20]
Collegiate a cappella ensembles are college-affiliated singing groups, primarily in the United States, and, increasingly, the United Kingdom and Ireland, that perform entirely without musical instruments. The groups are typically composed of, operated by, and directed by students. In the context of collegiate a cappella, the term a cappella typically also refers to the music genre performed by pop-centric student singing groups. Consequently, an ensemble that sings unaccompanied classical music may not be considered an a cappella group, even though technically it is performing a cappella.
"Let's Do It, Let's Fall in Love" is a popular song written in 1928 by Cole Porter. It was introduced in Porter's first Broadway success, the musical Paris (1928) by French chanteuse Irène Bordoni, for whom Porter had written the musical as a starring vehicle.
"Lullaby of Broadway" is a popular song with music written by Harry Warren and lyrics by Al Dubin, published in 1935. The lyrics salute the nightlife of Broadway and its denizens, who "don't sleep tight until the dawn."
The Yale Glee Club is a mixed chorus of men and women, consisting of students of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Founded in 1861, it is the third oldest collegiate chorus in the United States after the Harvard Glee Club, founded in 1858, and the University of Michigan Men's Glee Club, founded in 1859. The Glee Club performs several concerts each year in New Haven and goes on tour each January. According to music critic Zachary Woolfe of the New York Times, it is "one of the best collegiate singing ensembles, and one of the most adventurous." Its members are "world famous for their harmonic precision" per New York Times music critic Robert Sherman.
The Spizzwinks, stylized as The Spizzwinks(?), are an a cappella singing group of undergraduates from Yale University. Founded in late 1913, the Spizzwinks(?) are the oldest underclassman a cappella group in the United States, dating back to a first performance in early 1914.
The Princeton Nassoons are a ten to twenty-member low-voice a cappella group at Princeton University. The group has been officially self-selecting since 1941, although the original group is known to have sung together as early as 1939. The Nassoons are the oldest a cappella group at Princeton University.
"Don't Fence Me In" is a popular American song written in 1934, with music by Cole Porter and lyrics by Robert Fletcher and Cole Porter. Members of the Western Writers of America chose it as one of the Top 100 Western songs of all time.
"I Love Paris" is a popular song written by Cole Porter and published in 1953. The song was introduced by Lilo in the role of La Mome in the musical Can-Can. A line in the song's lyrics inspired the title of the 1964 movie Paris When It Sizzles.
Mory's, known also as Mory's Temple Bar, is a private club adjacent to the campus of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, United States, founded in 1849 and housed in a clubhouse that was originally a private home built sometime before 1817. Originally it was a restaurant, especially hospitable to Yale undergraduates, located at the corner of Temple and Center Streets, but in 1912, when the building was to be demolished, the owner and proprietor, Louis Linder, sold it to a group of Yale alumni who moved the bar to 306 York Street and turned it into a membership club. The building was listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places in 2005.
"I Love You" is a song written by Cole Porter in 1944 for his stage musical Mexican Hayride.
Anything Goes is a 1936 American musical film directed by Lewis Milestone and starring Bing Crosby, Ethel Merman, Charles Ruggles and Ida Lupino. It is based on the 1934 stage musical Anything Goes by Guy Bolton and P. G. Wodehouse, which included songs by Cole Porter.
"I Love You, Samantha" is a song written by Cole Porter for the 1956 film High Society, where it was introduced by Bing Crosby.
"It's All Right with Me" is a popular song written by Cole Porter, for his 1953 musical Can-Can, where it was introduced by Peter Cookson as the character Judge Aristide Forestier.
In the British Army, a gentleman ranker is an enlisted soldier who is suited through education and social background to be a commissioned officer, or indeed a former commissioned officer. Rudyard Kipling titled one of his poems, which was published in 1892, "Gentlemen-Rankers".
"Boola Boola" is a football song of Yale University. It has enjoyed widespread popularity over the years and has been adapted to many other uses. Despite its popularity, it is not Yale's official fight song, which is "Bull Dog", by Cole Porter.
Poor Little Lambs is a play by Paul Rudnick. It was first produced at the Theater at St. Peter's Church in the Citicorp Center in Manhattan, New York City, in 1982. The 1982 production, which featured David Naughton of An American Werewolf in London fame, is notable for including in its cast a number of young actors who were beginning to achieve, or later achieved, significant success in television or movies, including Kevin Bacon, Gedde Watanabe and Bronson Pinchot.
Anything Goes is a soundtrack album issued by Decca Records from the film of the same name. The film starred Bing Crosby, Donald O'Connor, Jeanmaire, and Mitzi Gaynor. Joseph J. Lilley was the musical director with special orchestral arrangements by Van Cleave. All the songs were written by Cole Porter with the exception of three additional songs from Jimmy Van Heusen (music) and Sammy Cahn (lyrics) which have been annotated in the listing below. The soundtrack recording took place between April and June 1955. Three songs were recorded in February 1956 with Joseph J. Lilley and his Orchestra for inclusion in the album to replace the original soundtrack versions.
Bing Crosby Sings the Song Hits from Broadway Shows is a Decca Records compilation 78rpm album of phonograph records by Bing Crosby featuring some of the hits from Broadway musicals.
Bing Crosby Sings Cole Porter Songs is a Decca Records studio 78rpm album of phonograph records by Bing Crosby featuring the songs of Cole Porter.
"Aj lučka, lučka široká" is a Czech folk song. A Slovak equivalent, "Horela lipka, horela" has the same melody.
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