Lyr Add: Our Boys Will Shine Tonight (variations)

Subject: Lyr Add: OUR BOYS WILL SHINE TONIGHT (variations)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 27 May 04 - 09:55 AM

This was requested in another thread.

OUR BOYS WILL SHINE TONIGHT (if that's the original title) has been adapted to become the fight song of many American and worldwide high schools and colleges.

It made me curious: what is the original? I didn't find it at Levy, and the Library of Congress site won't come up for me right now.

This page has chords and a midi file.

Variations abound on the Internet. Here are a few I found:

KC will shine tonight, KC will shine;
She'll shine in beauty bright all down the night.*
Won't we look neat tonight, dressed up so fine?
When the sun goes down and the moon comes up, KC will shine.

[*"Night" doesn't seem right. It should be "line" to rhyme with "shine." -JD]

Kearny will shine tonight Kearny will shine.
She'll shine in beauty bright all down the line, believe me,
She's all dressed up tonight that's one good sign.
When the sun goes down and the moon comes up, Kearny will shine.

Our Scouts will shine tonight, our Scouts will shine,
Our Scouts will shine tonight, all down the line;
They're all dressed up tonight, don't they look fine!
When the sun goes down and the moon comes up, our Scouts will shine!

Pelkie will shine tonight, Pelkie will shine,
Pelkie will shine tonight dressed up so fine.
We washed our faces too, out for a time.
When the sun goes down and the moon comes up, Pelkie will shine.

Lehigh will shine tonight, Lehigh will shine;
Lehigh will shine tonight, Lehigh will shine;
Lehigh will shine tonight, Lehigh will shine;
When the sun goes down and the moon comes up, Lehigh will shine.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Our Boys Will Shine Tonight (variations)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 27 May 04 - 10:27 AM

I've found lots of ads for band instrument instruction books, usually published by Hal Leonard, that include OUR BOYS WILL SHINE TONIGHT attributed to Harold W. Rusch, but I suspect he's just the arranger, not the original author/composer. Anybody know more about Mr. Rusch?

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Our Boys Will Shine Tonight (variations)
From: masato sakurai
Date: 27 May 04 - 10:30 AM

The song is also a fight song of Rikkyo University (Saint Paul's Univertsity), Tokyo.

St.Paul's Will Shine Tonight [Real audio] (from the university's site).

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Our Boys Will Shine Tonight (variations)
From: masato sakurai
Date: 27 May 04 - 10:54 AM

According to this page (The Cakewalk 1897-1915), "Our Boys Will Shine Tonight" is a Civil War tune.

Georgia Camp Meeting - 1897 - Kerry Mills

Written as a "two-step, polka or cakewalk" it is in reality a perfect characteristic cakewalk. Kerry Mills, born in Philadelphia in 1869, was perhaps the most popular composer of popular American music in his lifetime, stated: "This march was not intended to be a part of the religious exercise, but when the young folks got together they felt as if they needed some amusement. A cakewalk was suggested and held in a quiet place - hence this music." Mills' career reflected the changing trends in American popular music in 1897 to 1915. He was a skillful and prolific composer, capable of writing in any popular idiom. His most lasting composition might be "Red Wing." Mills compositions were the antecedent of classic ragtime and they indicate a bridge between the old two-step danced to Sousa's "Washington Post March and Two Step" and the emerging styles of black-derived dance called the cakewalk. In Mills' music, unlike the grotesque 'coon' songs of the era, the Negro is a medicum of dignity and individuality. Mills' sheet music covers are carefully conceived, executed and designed to emphasize the title without resorting to a complex apparatus of symbolism. "Georgia" in its time was the biggest of hits and is based on the Civil War tune "Our Boys Will Shine Tonight." In "Georgia" one can see the influence of the cakewalk ancestor - the march, and it is band music, not written for the keyboard idiom.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Our Boys Will Shine Tonight (variations)
From: GUEST,Jim Dixon
Date: 27 May 04 - 11:48 AM

Similar information at http://www.jazzbymail.com/albums_gr/gsl5102.html :

At a Georgia Campmeeting - America's first syncopated hit instrumental. It was composed by Kerry Mills and first published in 1897. This tune became the most popular cakewalk of all time and was widely imitated. The hallmark first strain is a transformation of a civil war song, Our Boys Will Shine Tonight into syncopation.

According to one site, OUR BOYS WILL SHINE TONIGHT is in the book "Songs of the Pioneers #3" published by Albert E. Brumley and Sons. Books in this series are quite popular. Surely some Mudcatter has it. (I might even have it myself, at home, but I'm not there now.)

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Our Boys Will Shine Tonight (variations)
From: GUEST,Jim Dixon
Date: 27 May 04 - 12:31 PM

Country Joe McDonald's website says OUR BOYS WILL SHINE is on an LP called "Ballad of the Green Berets & Songs of America's Fighting Men" by Roger Dewey, Design Records DLP-250 (LP).

[Now why would Country Joe McDonald have a page about "War Music" which, as I read it, is mostly pro-war? He says: "This genre of American music did not really exist before the Vietnam War." Oh, yeah?]

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Our Boys Will Shine Tonight (variations)
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 27 May 04 - 02:16 PM

My first thought (which probably has nothing to do with anything!) was the similarity to:
"Three Stars Will Shine Tonight", theme IIRC to Dr Kildare (Richard Chamberlain)


Nigel

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Our Boys Will Shine Tonight (variations)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 28 May 04 - 10:32 PM

Turns out I don't have the Brumley book after all...

Another site says it's in "America Sings: Community Songbook" and "Song Session Community Songbook." Surely someone must have one of those?

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Our Boys Will Shine Tonight (variations)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 08 Jul 10 - 03:10 PM

I was hoping Google Books would shed some more light on the origin of this song, but so far, I have been disappointed. Here's the oldest reference I can find:

Patriotic Songs: Sung by S. A. T. C. [Students' Army Training Corps] of University of Nevada (Carson City: [Nevada] State Printing Office, 1918), page 12: [This appears to be part of a volume called Appendix to Journals of Senate and Assembly of the 29th Session of the Legislature of the State of Nevada, Vol. II, 1919.]


OUR BOYS WILL SHINE TONIGHT

Our boys will shine tonight. Our boys will shine.
We'll shine in beauty bright all down the line.
We're all dressed up tonight. That's one good sign.
When the sun goes down and the moon comes up, our boys will shine.

[No tune or origin is given, but in the table of contents, it is labeled "a round."]

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Our Boys Will Shine Tonight (variations)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 08 Jul 10 - 05:14 PM

Correction to the above message:

That was the oldest example I could find by searching for the phrase "our boys will shine." Loosening it up a bit, I also searched for "will shine tonight * will shine" and "will shine to-night * will shine" (The asterisk is a wild card.) and I found examples that went back a bit farther, but not as far as I'd hoped:

"DU will shine to-night, DU will shine" – from Delta Upsilon fraternity, 1909.

"Gym boys will shine to-night, Gym boys will shine" – from Alabama, 1912.

"Our club will shine tonight. Our club will shine" – from Idaho, 1912; also, Nevada, 1916; Tennessee, 1917.

"East Hall will shine to-night" – from Tufts University, 1915.

"Lincoln will shine tonight, Lincoln will shine" – from Lincoln High School, Lincoln, Nebraska, 1916.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Our Boys Will Shine Tonight (variations)
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Oct 11 - 05:04 PM

My alma mater, where I now teach, has this fight song.

Phila will shine tonight, Phila will shine
Phila will shine tonight, right down the line
Phila will shine tonight, Phila will shine
When the sun goes down and the moon comes up
Phila will shine

BUT we have a second verse! It was spirit week, so the choir classes sang it in the halls all week. I've been looking of the lyrics on line, but haven't found them yet. It's something like this:

.......................... we will defend
Our alma mater right 'til the end
.................................................
When the sun goes down and the moon comes up
Phila will shine

I wish I could remember the rest, but I was more concerned with teaching math than taking note of the exact words of the second verse.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Our Boys Will Shine Tonight (variations)
From: GUEST,Rheisenman
Date: 03 Jul 14 - 05:33 PM

I heard for Rutgers '22:

Our boys will shine tonight, our boys will shine.
Our boys will shine tonight all down the line.
They've wiped their faces clean, out for a time,
When the sun goes down and the moon comes up,
Our boys will shine.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Our Boys Will Shine Tonight (variations)
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Sep 14 - 03:06 PM

need a recording of the music to play at football game

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Our Boys Will Shine Tonight (variations)
From: GUEST,LHS Music Teacher
Date: 06 Oct 23 - 11:46 AM

An article from our publication 'The Advocate' on 2-14-1917 says that "The high school song "Lincoln Will Shine Tonight," made such a hit with the Eastern supervisors of music who were here last Spring that one of the leading Boston Music Publishers sent here for the words and music for publication. The words will probably be changed so that they will be general instead of local in order that they may be sung in any high school in the United States."

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Our Boys Will Shine Tonight (variations)
From: GUEST,LHS Music Teacher
Date: 06 Oct 23 - 11:46 AM

An article from our publication 'The Advocate' on 2-14-1917 says that "The high school song "Lincoln Will Shine Tonight," made such a hit with the Eastern supervisors of music who were here last Spring that one of the leading Boston Music Publishers sent here for the words and music for publication. The words will probably be changed so that they will be general instead of local in order that they may be sung in any high school in the United States."