State picked ‘On, Wisconsin!’ song — 50 years after the Badgers did
It’s not every day that a governor signs a bill with brass-band accompaniment.
But Gov. Gaylord Nelson did on July 7, 1959 — which actually made sense, since he was signing into law the measure that made “On, Wisconsin!” the official state song.
At the time, Wisconsin was reportedly one of just 10 states that didn’t have an official song.
It wasn’t for lack of trying — at least by songwriters.
According to Milwaukee Journal reports, J.G. Monahan, editor of the Darlington Republican, offered as an official state song “Wisconsin, Land of Beauty” in 1900. In 1921, the Wisconsin Teachers Association sponsored “Wisconsin, Forevermore” as a possible state theme. On Dec. 20, 1931, The Journal reported that a composer and trumpeter named Harry D. O’Neil offered up “Beautiful Wisconsin,” (sample lyric: “From its lakes there leaps the sturgeon / Beneath a sky of azure blue / O’er the groves of singing pine trees / Comes the plaintive croon of the loon”).
In 1948, in time for Wisconsin’s centennial, Raymond Dvorak, the director of the University of Wisconsin band, composed a theme song for the Century of Progress Cavalcade, a pageant traveling the state. “Forward! One and All!” was adapted from a Haydn melody, The Journal reported on April 16, 1948, with the idea it would become the state song.
They all had stiff competition, however, from the tune that many in the Badger State probably thought already
was the state’s official song.
As the story goes, “On, Wisconsin!” first was written in 1909 for a Minnesota fight song contest by William T. Purdy. The composer’s roommate, Carl Beck, who went to the University of Wisconsin, wrote lyrics for it and convinced Purdy to quit the Gophers for the Badgers. The song was played at a Badgers-Gophers football game on Nov. 13, 1909, and a tradition was born.
After that, everything from political rallies to the launching of the USS Wisconsin was accompanied by the familiar strains, and often the lyrics (“On, Wis-con-sin! On, Wis-con-sin! Glo-ry to thy name!”), of “On, Wisconsin!”.
But the state, which only adopted the badger as Wisconsin’s official land mammal in 1957, had never made it official.
So on Feb. 3, 1959, Harold W. Clemens, a state representative from Lac La Belle, introduced a bill to make it so.
Clemens — a baritone who sang with bandleader Fred Waring’s Navy troupe during World War II and was a soloist with the Oconomowoc American Legion Band — was so eager to get the measure enacted that, when it was discussed by the Assembly State Affairs Committee on Feb. 26, he tried to get the legislators to sing it with him.
“The committee members declined,” The Journal reported on Feb. 27. “They told Clemens, however, that
he would get his chance for a solo when the bill reached the floor of the Assembly.”
Clemens added that the song’s 50th anniversary would be a “fitting time” to make “On, Wisconsin!” the official state song.
According to The Journal, Clemens noted at the Feb. 26 hearing that the version of “On, Wisconsin!” that he was urging become the state song was different from the rally cry that Badgers fans will be singing when Wisconsin takes on Miami in the Orange Bowl Saturday night.
In 1913, a lyric was rewritten to remove the original’s football reference. According to Wisconsin state statutes, the rewrite was:
On, Wisconsin! On, Wisconsin! Grand old Badger State! We, thy loyal sons and daughters, Hail thee, good and great. On, Wisconsin! On, Wisconsin! Champion of the right, “Forward,” our motto —God will give thee might!
On June 10, the state Senate approved the measure and sent it to Nelson’s desk. The Democratic governor signed it in a photo-op event on July 7. On hand were Clemens; two members of his Oconomowoc Legion band; and Dvorak.
On July 27, The Journal reported, Clemens finally got his other wish.
The assemblyman, who served six terms in the Legislature and a brief stint as state treasurer (he died in 1998 at age 80), sang “On, Wisconsin!” on the floor of the Assembly before the legislative session’s final gavel.