“Heaven help the foes of Washington/They’re trembling at the feet of mighty Washington/Our teams are there with bells/Their fighting blood excels/It’s harder to push them over the line than pass the Dardanelles.”
When I was a student at the University of Washington in the early 1980s, I loved sitting in the Husky Stadium stands (when students actually got to sit along the 50-yard-line) and singing along to the fight song, “Bow Down to Washington.”
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Early on, however, I did not know what that line, “It’s harder to push them over the line than pass the Dardanelles,” actually referred to. The same is true for a lot of Husky fans today. When I talked to fans about the song at this season’s homecoming game, many brought up the Dardanelles reference.
“If you asked most people, even college graduates of the University of Washington, ‘What are the Dardanelles?’ they would have no idea,” former Husky football player and current Federal Way, Washington, mayor Jim Ferrell said. “So the inclusion of that is very interesting.”
Ferrell does know the Dardanelles reference, which I also learned by seeing the movie “Gallipoli,” as a college sophomore. That movie is about the Gallipoli/Dardanelles Campaign in World War I, which took place by the northern bank of the Dardanelles, a narrow sea strait in Turkey. More than 100,000 British, French and Ottoman Empire soldiers were killed in the campaign that lasted from February 1915 to January 1916.
That helps explain why Lester J. Wilson included the Dardanelles reference in the “Bow Down” song he wrote in 1915.
“When I got here in 1994, I had to look it up to make sure I understood,” current UW band director Brad McDavid said. “Most (fight song) lyrics have to do with an interesting, popular point on college campuses or some lyrics surrounding a certain sporting event that is very popular on that campus. But this is the only one that I know of so far that has to do with a geographic location outside of our own campus. …
“That waterway played an enormous role in whoever won the battle. I guess that’s why Lester chose to incorporate it in the lyrics.”
The school newspaper, The Daily, actually got the school fight song started in 1915 – when the team was called the Sun Dodgers, not the Huskies – by offering $25 to the person who created and submitted the best song. Wilson’s “Bow Down to Washington” was selected as the winner among 14 entries. (His $25 win would be worth roughly $625 today.)
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“If you’re going to have a college fight song now, you’ll probably go to some professional musician to put this stuff together,” said Lynn Borland, who wrote a story about “Bow Down” for the UW alumni magazine. “But back then it was just the students that put in their suggested fight song.”
“Bow Down” was first played at a Husky football game on Oct. 30, 1915, five years before Husky Stadium opened, when Washington beat Whitman 27-0 at Denny Field on the upper campus. They even hauled a piano onto the field so Wilson could play his song. It became the official school fight song a week later on Nov. 6, when Washington beat California 72-0 in Berkeley.
In the Daily contest, the song entries had to include mention of the Cal Bears, so perhaps that 72-point victory margin owed something to Wilson’s original lyrics:
“See the Golden Bear, with the glassy stare/Well, he knows he’ll be a dead one in the morning.”
Those lyrics were later removed, as were a few other original lines, including: “Dobie, Dobie pride of Washington/Leather lungs together with a Rah! Rah! Rah!” which was written in honor of then-coach Gil Dobie. Dobie never lost a game at Washington, going 58-0 with three ties from 1908-16. After he left Washington, the line was changed to “Victory, the cry of Washington/Leather lungs together with a Rah! Rah! Rah!” and has remained so ever since.
Another important change was made this summer, when the lines “Mighty are the men who wear the purple and the gold” and “Our boys are there with bells” were reworked so that the song doesn’t mention only male athletes, particularly given the success and importance of UW’s women athletes. The first line now says “Mighty are the ones who wear the purple and the gold,” the second says “Our teams are there with bells.”
In 2010, Bleacher Report ranked “Bow Down to Washington” as the No. 4 fight song in the nation – just behind Michigan, Notre Dame and USC – and describing it as “one of the most critically-acclaimed fight songs in the country.” Back in its early years, famed journalist and broadcaster Walter Winchell declared “Bow Down” the country’s most inspiring college fight song.
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“I think the most interesting fact that I always try to impart on Husky fans is that it was actually an award-winning composition back in 1915, when it was part of a national fight song competition, and it was one of the top award winners,” McDavid said. “I’m not sure most Husky fans realize that the fight song we have from way back when was voted on a national level as one of the top fight songs in the nation.”
“Bow Down” gets played throughout Husky games, though due to some time limits and commercial breaks, it is occasionally just a short version with the opening lines or the chorus. And it isn’t always loudly sung by all fans.
“I think it’s a really interesting fight song. It’s not as much of a ‘rah rah’ song that gets people to stand up and cheer,” said Kris Lambright, who played the piccolo in the UW band in the 1980s and is the daughter of former Husky football coach Jim Lambright. “When the (Washington State) Cougar fight song gets played, everybody gets up. It’s simpler and easier, whereas ‘Bow Down,’ from a musical standpoint is better, but it doesn’t get as many people singing.”
Borland agreed. “You go into a song like ‘On Wisconsin,’ it has this lyrical aspect that is easier to get into your head,” he said. “‘Bow Down’ is a bit more complex, and it really tells a story – an abbreviated short story – but I think it’s a little more difficult to master. And that may account for it.”
Lambright learned the song as a child and played it during auditions when she started with the marching band. McDavid says he passes out “Bow Down” the first day the new members join the band (and also tells them what the Dardanelles reference means), informing them that they have to have it down pat within three weeks. The band plays the song with the football team singing along after a victory, which Lambright and Ferrell say was not the case when they were with the band – and team – during the 1980s.
Added Ferrell: “Actually, in the Husky locker room, above our lockers in big letters was written, ‘Mighty are the men who wear the purple and the gold.’”
Those lyrics appear all over. A couple of fans at the homecoming game said they had t-shirts with the lyrics printed on the front. Gregg Ford, a history teacher at Ridgefield High School, said he sings it during his classes when teaching his students about World War I. “Seriously, I do. When we get to that part of the war, we sing the song so they figure out how the lyrics fit.”
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By the way, Lester also wrote “Bow Down to Uncle Sam” when the U.S. entered the war in 1917. It had the same music but different – though similar – lyrics, such as:
“Heaven help the foes of Uncle Sam/They’re trembling at the feet of mighty Uncle Sam/Our hearts are joined anew/So boys it’s up to you/Somewhere in France, we’ll make ‘em dance to Yankee Doodle Doo.”
That version, though fun, is not played anywhere near as often as “Bow Down to Washington,” which has influenced Huskies fans near and far.
“Every time I have an alum who goes on a cruise or something through the Dardanelles, they’ll take a picture and tell me ‘I can cross it off my bucket list – I’ve been through the Dardanelles!’” McDavid said.
So it seems that Wilson was right: More than a century after he wrote his lyrics, it is still harder to push the Huskies over the line.
(Photo: George Rinhart/Corbis via Getty Images)
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