What does ‘Roar, Lion, Roar’ tell us about Columbia today?
What does ‘Roar, Lion, Roar’ tell us about Columbia today?
Sadia Sharif / Staff Illustrator
January 26, 2021, 2:46 PM
When I set out to write an article on Columbia fight songs, I planned to write about drinking songs (“The Columbia Drinking Song”) and stolen songs (“Stand Up and Cheer,” from the University of Kansas) and bad, boring, embarrassing songs (“Who Owns New York?”)—all songs that I, and maybe most of us, have never heard. I read the fight songs that Columbia students had written, most around 100 years ago, and the songs said what they probably did not mean to say at all: Columbia is obsessed with its legacy—and owning, and ranking, and lasting forever. The more songs I read, the more obvious this was, again and again, in new and different ways. One song that had everything—the legacy obsession, the gender bias, the total disregard for anyone outside the institution—I had already heard, far too many times, just like everyone has. If you listen to “Roar, Lion, Roar” enough, you can hear most of the major issues in Columbia Athletics—and some in the Columbia community—outlined in two paragraphs.