The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #10390   Message #2396224
Posted By: Steve Gardham
23-Jul-08 - 04:14 PM
Thread Name: Origins: Crawdad Song
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Crawdad Song
Azizi,
Sorry I didn't come back to this earlier.
'Terrace chants' = football chants/soccer chants.

I'm told this doesn't happen much your side of the pond. This side it is one of the purest of folk traditions and is unbroken for at least a century. Nearly all of the tunes are well-known marches or pop songs and some are even from what we call folk songs. Many of the tunes come from your side of the pond, hence Crawdad. Some are sections from Sousa marches. They rarely stretch beyond a single stanza and many are just single line chants. The lyrics invariably come from an anonymous band of ardent young supporters/fans and any attempts at introducing chants from the establishment are immediately rejected. New chants spread like wildfire from one set of fans to the others. The most popular tunes are Guantanamera, Stars and Stripes, Son of the Father (Chicory Tip), We love you Jesus, Amazing Grace, Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, Tom Harks, Big Ben chimes, Battle Hymn of the Republic, Blaydon Races, Land of Hope and Glory. Some teams have their own specific anthems which are usually old pop songs. I might add the tradition is just as strong at rugby matches in both codes.