Vintage Collegiate Sheet Music

4th Mar 2020

Vintage sheet music from old-line colleges and universities brings back a nostalgic feel. Popular between the 1890s and 1920s, these large format sheets typically have a beautiful cover illustration and inside contain by the sheet music and verse for one song. They were usually produced in “Tin Pan Alley,” a neighborhood in New York City that was replete with music publishers at the time. Tin Pan Alley was located on West 28th Street between Broadway and Fifth Avenue.

The “Yale Blues” music below is a typical example, published by Leo Feist, one of a hard core of the Tin Pan Alley publishers and at the time one of the top 10 music publishers in the world.

This Yale "War Song," Big Chief Eli was written by Marshall M. Bartholomew and shows Yale Chief Eli's chasing the Princeton tiger mascot and a Harvard student. It was published in 1906 and featured a caricature of an Indian as their mascot even though their school mascot was the bulldog, a tradition that began in 1889. The Eli comes from the name of Yale's founder Elihu Yale.

The Co-Ed sheet music, published in 1925, below featured a Ukulele Arrangement and was written by Con Conrad and Saul Bernie. Conrad wrote many hits over his career and wrote for Broadway musicals as well. He is a member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame. The lyrics are quite funny and the verses rhyme:

Stranger, if you're feeling danger keep away from Co-Eds on a moonlight night

Vampers on the college campus, always make me foolish, when I hold them tight

I took her out in my canoe 

'Twas then I met my Waterloo 

Fair Co-Ed I love you, with your cheeks powdered up and a ring on each finger of your hand

Rare Co-Ed its for you, that my lips pucker up when we dance to the music of the band

It's not the knowledge you gained at College that makes you famous throughout the land

I swear by stars above you, it's the red in your head knocks em dead, sweet and fair Co-Ed

The cover illustration of the Co-Ed sheet music was done by Alfred Barbelle, a popular Tin Pan Alley artist. Another famous illustrator of early music was William Starmer who drew this 1902 Princeton Two-Step march, written by Gerald Burke:

This Columbia University March is typical of the style with a beautiful illustrative cover:

Famous composers or lyricists that worked in Tin Pan Alley include Ira and George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, George Hammerstein, Richard Rogers and Scott Joplin. The genre was far ranging and included marches, waltzes and straight up collegiate songs.

This University of Pennsylvania song is about the University Girl (published in 1897) and the caption under the photo is of Edna Wallace Hopper. Hopper was a stage actress and also starred in early silent films, she was known as the "Eternal Flapper."

Although the Penn song was about the University Girl, the truth was that college was virtually an all male pursuit and would remain so for decades. The Brown Men All! Song, published in 1909 made this quite clear.

 

Beautiful University of Michigan music from 1909:

Because of their age and scarcity we have only a limited selection of sheet music among our vintage collegiate collectibles.