The 'charge' song at baseball games

Subject: The 'charge' song at baseball games
From: Max
Date: 07 Apr 10 - 11:00 PM

You know the one: dat da da da dat da da da CHARGE!!!!
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vb19d08Lnec)

Got a little curious and found:

Re: History of "Charge" Song.
The "Charge" song that everyone associates with baseball games was created by Tommy Walker in 1946. Tommy Walker was a junior at USC . The USC football team was in need of a lift that season, so he wrote a six-note fanfare for the trumpet section: "Da da da DUT da DUH!" Trojan rooters then screamed, "Charge!"

The "Charge" song/chant became famous when the Dodgers moved from Brooklyn to Los Angeles in 1958 and began to use it.

URL: http://able2know.org/topic/86304-1

There seems to be some insistence that it is from a military bugle call that goes back 100 or 2 years farther back.

Anyone have any additional thoughts on this?

Subject: RE: The 'charge' song at baseball games
From: mousethief
Date: 07 Apr 10 - 11:35 PM

In the novelty record "Last Blast of the Blasted Bugler" (aka "The Legend of Gunga Din") by Sonny Giannotta, recorded in 1962, the bugler plays a succession of notes that ends with the ballfield "charge" figure you refer to. (You can find it on YouTube: here). Not sure what this signifies.

Subject: RE: The 'charge' song at baseball games
From: Goose Gander
Date: 08 Apr 10 - 12:05 AM

I remember this from Dodger games in the 1970s . . . who was that organ player?

Subject: RE: The 'charge' song at baseball games
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Jul 12 - 08:18 PM

Subject: RE: The 'charge' song at baseball games
From: Tiger
Date: 22 Jul 12 - 08:40 PM

Gladys Gooding

Subject: RE: The 'charge' song at baseball games
From: kendall
Date: 22 Jul 12 - 08:45 PM

Why do people sing Take me out to the ball game when they are already there?

Subject: RE: The 'charge' song at baseball games
From: Rapparee
Date: 22 Jul 12 - 08:49 PM

The bugle call for "Charge" (US military) and a whole bunch of other US bugle calls are here.

Subject: RE: The 'charge' song at baseball games
From: Rapparee
Date: 22 Jul 12 - 09:02 PM

Why is there a Seventh Inning Stretch? Shouldn't it be at 4.5 innings? I mean, in golf you can have a beer after 9 holes....

Subject: RE: The 'charge' song at baseball games
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 23 Jul 12 - 01:44 AM

The complete "Organ Charge" as at the YouTube Link can't have been a "bugle call," since it modulates from one key to another in the intro, and "bugles got no keys" to do that (unless they play in octaves so high only the dogs - or bats - could hear them)

The last 6 notes, just before every one yells "Charge," is heard fairly often without the modulated lead-in, at amateur games, played on a "bugle," and could have been a bugle call although I never heard it in my Army days (which doesnt' mean a lot) but it also doesn't appear to be in the Boy Scout "Music Merit Badge Book" (1940s - 50s versions) that does have several common "calls" in it (which also isn't a very authoritative source).

The "Bugle Charge" in the last few notes is a fairly "perfect for bugle" call since it uses only the notes that are "pure harmonics" (hence no keys/fingerings needed), and uses all of the ones in the third(?) octave above the bugle's fundamental in sequence so there are no "jumps" that might be missed. (All the pitch transitions are from one harmonic to an adjacent one without requiring "skipping over" one to get to the next note.)

Very easy to play on a bugle, and on a saxophone with all the open keyholes held shut to simulate a bugle. Can be played on about any brass instrument if the valves/keys are ignored, but can't be played on a clarinet - without flappping keys around.

The classic (US) military "Charge" call is a three(?) note one - actually fairly accurately used in older "western movies" (i.e. "oaters") when the Cavalry was in on the plot. The sample at Rap's link just above sounds accurate, but whoevere posted the site probably only knows it from the movies.

With the exception of "Charge" the calls at the link are ones that essentially replace an alarm clock. The only ones most people in the "modern military" need to recognize are the ones (usually two separate ones) played when the flag is lowered at close of the "work day." On many posts, the MPs will stop you and speak harshly if you don't pull over and sit still 'till they're done. Even reveille is "non-essential" since those to whom it applies will have someone to "roll them out" if they oversleep.

If there's any military lineage for the short "bugle-ish" Charge, it would most likely be in the "tactical bugle calls" from times when horse cavalry was still around. Legend(?) says there were about 20 or so such tactical calls that it was once very necessary for the troops to know, but I doubt that anyone alive now remembers more than one or two of those, and probably calls the remembered ones by the wrong names.

John

Subject: RE: The 'charge' song at baseball games
From: Mark Ross
Date: 23 Jul 12 - 08:56 AM

"Charge!" with the bugle call comes from the movie ARSENIC AND OLD LACE.
The movie came out during WWII. One of the characters thinks he's Teddy Roosevelt, and is continually charging up the stairs blowing a bugle, yelling "Charge!", thinking that he is leading the Rough Riders up San Juan Hill.
After the movie came out crowds at Dodger games started doing it.
At least, that is the story that the director, Frank Capra tells in his autobiography THE NAME ABOVE THE TITLE.


Mark Ross