Brotherhood Song

How/Why the brotherhood song was written in 1965

Background:

Greek Sing started in late 50s or early 60s

Prior to 1965 it was mostly informally dressed, lighthearted songs with cute, funny, no harmony singing

Meanwhile, strong competition was developing among the Greeks in athletics, securing the best pledges, controlling student government etc.

In 1964, EBT finished in first place with two great songs:

      “Would you like to swing on a star” making fun of sororities

      “Fugue for tinhorns” from Guys and Dolls (I got the horse right here…”) in 3-part harmony.

Buoyed by that success and recognizing the talent displayed by our 30-40 brothers, and knowing our competitors would be “upping the ante” in Greek sing creativity in 1965, the creative team of President DiCorcia (a drummer in a rock group), director Tom Coyle, and brother Ed Coyle decided to formalize and dramatize EBT's presentation.

Since the Catholic Pope had declared an ecumenical year for all religions to cooperate, the creative team decided that a medley of three religious songs, Catholic in Latin, Christian in English, and Jewish in Yiddish would be serious and display the brothers’ diversity and musical talents.

Then, needing to write an original song, we decided to fall back on a long-time classical and well- recognized favorite, Gaudeamus Igitur, for the tune and decided that some anthem- type song bragging about our brotherhood would really “stick it to our competition.”

Secluding themselves one evening at Paul DiCorcia's apartment, the team focused on the fraternity crest to draw inspiration. The lyrics flowed easily but the only part of the tune we knew was the music from the verse.  We had to build our own “bridge” between verses and an ending. Later with Paul’s dad at the keyboard, we sang what we wanted for the “bridge” and ending and Dad wrote down the musical notation.  So, the music behind the lyrics “faces toward the sky…etc.” and “though these years are only few...etc.” are an original creation which tied the two verses together and created the ending we wanted.

Paul’s dad was an accomplished church organist, so, on a Sunday afternoon he arranged an initial rehearsal at his church where we brought the brothers together and began rehearsals.

Brother Gene Barrett's future wife, Jennifer did an outstanding job on the piano rehearsing and playing for our award-winning performance.

The brothers quickly adopted the song as our anthem and they proudly added the thumb tap at the end and the shouted “SIGMA BETA TAU” to punctuate their pride. We have now been singing it for 56 years.

The authors are extremely proud of having a small part in EBT history.

Tom Coyle

EBT