Whiffenpoof Contest

Far beyond the storied paneling of Mory's, Yale's favorite taproom where it is traditionally sung, has echoed the old-time Whiffenpoof Song, Yale's Rudy Vallee croons it to radio millions in an arrangement of his own. It rang last week as far away as the primeval redwoods of California's Bohemian Grove, where the annual Jinks of the Bohemian Club were in progress. It also rang in a Manhattan court, where G. Schirmer, Inc. and Miller Music, Inc. were disputing which had the publication rights to it.

Everyone knows that the Whiffenpoof Song is a parody of Kipling's Gentlemen Rankers, whose refrain it uses almost intact. Not everyone knows that the score was written by an Amherst man, the late Tod Galloway, who put a lot of Kipling to music, or that the words date from the autumn of 1909 when cadaverous Meade Minnigerode, since famed as the author of The Son of Marie Antoinette, The Magnificent Comedy, and George Pomeroy composed them for the delectation of a drinking group formed the spring before and called the Whiffenpoofs. G. Schirmer, Inc. contest that they got the rights to the song for an official Yale Song Book. Miller Music, Inc. protest that Authors Minnigerode & Pomeroy authorized them to publish the song as arranged by Vallee, as sheet music last year.

The Whiffenpoof Song: To the tables down at Mory's, To the place where Louis dwells, To the dear old Temple Bar we love so

well

Sing the Whiffenpoofs assembled With their glasses raised on high, And the magic of their singing casts its

spell.

Yes, the magic of their singing Of the songs we love so well. "Shall I Wasting," and "Mavourneen,"

and the rest.

We will serenade our Louis While life and voice shall last. Then we'll pass and be forgotten with the

rest.

(Chorus)

We're little lambs who have lost our way. Baa, Baa, Baa. We're little black sheep who have gone astray.

Baa, Baa, Baa;

Gentlemen, songsters, off on a spree, Damned from here to eternity, God have mercy on such as we. Baa, Baa, Baa.

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