How to Sing Michigan State Fight Songs

The athletics teams of Michigan State University enjoy one of the most rabid fan followings in all of college sports. You can learn to sing Michigan State fight songs to prove your true-blue loyalty to the Spartans.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Printer or pen and paper
• Media playback software
• PayPal account or credit card (may be needed)

1. Learn the lyrics to the first part of the official MSU fight song: "On the banks of the Red Cedar is a school that's known to all--its specialty is winning, and those Spartans play good ball. Spartan teams are never beaten, all through the games they fight--fight for the only colors, green and white!"
2. Study the second part of the song: "Go right through for MSU, watch the points keep growing! Spartan teams are bound to win, they're fighting with a vim! RAH! RAH! RAH! See their team is weakening, we're going to win this game. Fight! Fight! Rah! Team, Fight! Victory for MSU!"
3. Print out a copy of the lyrics. One trick that memory experts suggest using is to manually re-type the lyrics into a word processor. This forces you to look at each word as you copy it, helping facilitate faster memory recall. It's even better to write them out by hand.
4. Find an audio file of a performance of the song on the Internet. FightMusic has a direct link to the Michigan State fight song, as well as the songs of other Big Ten Conference colleges (see Resources below). One way to ensure authenticity is to hunt down a version played by the school's band during an official event. Amateur versions and variations might also be returned during your Web searches.
5. Download the audio clip to your computer if your computer has problems playing back streamed media. If you are accessing a copyrighted version of the song, make sure that you pay for your download if asked.
6. Purchase a CD containing MSU fight music. A relatively inexpensive compilation of songs can be found at MSU's online store (see Resources below).
7. Sing along as the song plays, using your lyrics sheet as a reference. Once you've been over the "MSU Fight Song" several times, try to sing without referring to the lyrics. Keep practicing until you have the song's progression committed to memory.

Tips & Warnings

• The "MSU Fight Song" originated as a cheer for the Aggies, the old nickname for Michigan State's varsity teams. The fight song underwent significant changes when the school switched to the "Spartans" nickname. You can easily tell if your version is new or old based on whether "Aggies" or "Spartans" is used.