On a crisp, quiet evening in early fall, a group of students gathers beneath an enormous oak tree near the center of campus. The year is 1904, and these fresh-faced young people have returned to the sleepy little town of Ann Arbor for another year of classes, parties and football games. The Wolverines would finish 10-0 that year, capping the season off with a decisive victory over the University of Chicago.

As the students light a bonfire, they begin to sing the University’s alma mater, “The Yellow and Blue.” Splitting into four-part harmony, their voices rise with the smoke of the fire into the highest branches of the mighty oak tree above them. As the last chord fades away, a feeling of optimism and good cheer spreads through the group as its members eagerly look forward to the coming school year.

Today, this lonely oak tree is no longer the site of such gatherings. Dubbed the Tappan Oak after the University’s first president, the tree still towers over campus on a small strip of grass on the west side of Hatcher Graduate Library. Though thousands of students pass beneath it every year, none stop to sing the University’s alma mater as in days of old.

The Tappan Oak is testament to a time without iPods, when singing was an integral part of campus life. In the early 19th century, faculty and students started composing school songs to honor the University. What began as a handful of pieces grew into an enormous repertoire of University fight songs, hymns, nostalgic songs and comic ditties collected in a series of songbooks that continued to expand into the post-World War II era.

THE BIG THREE BOOKS

Like the Tappan Oak, this treasure trove of songs lies all but forgotten to the larger student body. Yet the music has managed to live on, thanks to a few groups devoted to performing Michigan songs and preserving them for posterity.

“We think of ourselves in the Men’s and Women’s Glee Clubs as sort of the custodians of these pieces,” said Paul Rardin, the director of the Men’s Glee Club and an associate professor of choral conducting in the School of Music, Theatre & Dance.

Series of Michigan songbooks serve as relics of a bygone era. The earliest of these books, “Songs of the Yellow and Blue,” was first published in 1889. The small, teal-colored volume contains the earliest Michigan songs, including the University's alma mater.

Two other important songs contained in this first songbook are a pair of Glee Club favorites. The valiant “Laudes Atque Carmina” (“Songs and Praises”), which opens every Men’s Glee Club concert, is a Latin hymn of praise to the University. The reverent “Goddess of the Inland Seas” places the University on par with ancient Greece.

“ ‘Goddess of the Inland Seas’ was composed in the late 1880s by a faculty member, and of course the faculty members back then were all well versed in the classics,” said Carl Smith, a retired CPA who serves as faculty adviser for the Men’s Glee Club. “You have to remember that this university was founded on the classics, and it just added and expanded from that.”

In 1904, the University released a new, expanded songbook titled simply “The Michigan University Song Book.” Among the songs included was a four-part arrangement of Louis Elbel’s famous march, “The Victors.” Composed for the 1898 football team, Elbel’s iconic piece was given lyrics in 1904 when the Men’s Glee Club added it to its repertoire.

“Michigan’s Favorite College Songs,” the most comprehensive volume to date and the last of the three main volumes, was published in 1913. The new songbook was the first to feature the fight song “Varsity,” which the Michigan Marching Band still performs at football games. The book also featured new numbers from the Michigan Union Operas.

Beginning in 1908, an all-male group known as the Mimes began writing and performing comic operas in order to raise money to build the Michigan Union.