Anchors Aweigh

Anchors Aweigh!

Organizational anthem of the  U.S. Navy
Lyrics	John Hagan, 1997
Music	Charles A. Zimmermann, 1906
Adopted	1907; 114 years ago (1907)
Audio sample
Menu 0:00 1993 recording of "Anchors Aweigh", as performed by the United States Navy Band file help

"Anchors Aweigh" is the fight song of the United States Naval Academy and unofficial march song of the United States Navy. It was composed in 1906 by Charles A. Zimmermann with lyrics by Alfred Hart Miles. When he composed "Anchors Aweigh", Zimmermann was a lieutenant and had been bandmaster of the United States Naval Academy Band since 1887. Miles was Midshipman First Class at the Academy, in the class of 1907, and had asked Zimmermann to assist him in composing a song for that class, to be used as a football march. Another Academy Midshipman, Royal Lovell (class of 1926), later wrote what would be adopted into the song as its third verse.

Etymology[]

Old Dutch sailors' expression, to get the anchors lifted. Dutch and Flemish were dominating sailors' expressions all over the world. To "weigh anchor" is to bring it aboard a vessel in preparation for departure. The phrase "anchors aweigh" is a report that the anchors are clear of the sea bottom and, therefore, the ship is officially under way.

"Anchors aweigh" is often misspelled as "Anchor's away", leading to confusion of the terms and the misunderstanding that it means "to drop anchor".^{[citation needed]} Another confusion is evident in the spellings encountered both with and without an apostrophe. Here, it is a matter of distinguishing the singular anchor + contraction of "is" (that is, "anchor's aweigh") from the plural (anchors aweigh), meaning all anchors of the ship are raised. Although the original (now archaic) "aweigh" is verbal and transitive, the "aweigh" used now is adjectival/adverbial in nature and meaning.^[1][2]

"Weigh" as a verb means to "bear" or "move", thus giving it several shades of meaning and derivation, including "weight" or "heaviness".

History[]

Play media

U.S. Navy recruits singing the post-1997 lyrics of "Anchors Aweigh" as they walk through a tunnel at Recruit Training Command Great Lakes in Illinois.

The song was first played during the Army–Navy football game on December 1, 1906, at Franklin Field in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Navy won the game 10–0 before a crowd in excess of 30,000, their first win in the match up since 1900.^{[citation needed]}

The song was gradually adopted as the song of the U.S. Navy; although there is a pending proposal to make it the official song, and to incorporate protocol into Navy regulations for its performance, its status remains unofficial.^[timeframe?] Its lyrics were considered too specific to the Academy and not representative of the Navy at large, and so were rewritten by George D. Lottman (note the reference to "farewell to college joys"). Its melody was also slightly rewritten by Domenico Savino.^[timeframe?]

The song has a joyful, brisk melody, and it has been adopted by several other navies around the world, such as the Finnish Navy. In addition to being bandmaster at the Naval Academy, Zimmerman was also the organist at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Annapolis, and the opening notes of the melody to "Anchors Aweigh" bear a marked similarity (although in a different tempo) to the opening of the ancient Marian hymn Salve Regina, with which Zimmerman would have been thoroughly familiar.

During World War II, members of the Navy Women's Reserve, known more popularly as the WAVES, wrote "WAVES of the Navy" to harmonize with "Anchors Aweigh".^[3]

Bing Crosby included the song in a medley on his album 101 Gang Songs (1961).

Many arrangements of "Anchors Aweigh" exist today, one arrangement by Paul V. Yoder often sees use by military bands, such as those of the Japan Self-Defense Forces and other nations' militaries.^{[4][5][6][7][8]}

Lyrics[]

1943 sheet music

	Performed in 1930 by Phil Spitalny (2 min. 33 secs) Menu 0:00 Performed by the Boston Pops in 1944 (27 secs) Menu 0:00 Performed by the U.S. Navy Band in the 1990s (37 secs) Menu 0:00
Problems playing these files? See media help.

"Anchors Aweigh" (1906 version), which is still used today at the Naval Academy.^[9]

Revised Lyrics of 1926 by George D. Lottman:

Revised Lyrics of 1997 by MCPON John Hagan, USN (Ret) which is used today by the Navy:

See also[]

• "Marines' Hymn", the song of the United States Marine Corps (USMC)
• "Semper Paratus" (march), the song of the United States Coast Guard (USCG)
• "The Army Goes Rolling Along", the song of the United States Army (USA)
• "The U.S. Air Force" (song), the song of the United States Air Force (USAF)

References[]

Further reading[]

• Collins, Ace. Songs Sung, Red, White, and Blue: The Stories Behind America's Best-Loved Patriotic Songs. HarperResource, 2003. ISBN 0060513047

External links[]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Anchors Aweigh.

• "Anchors Aweigh" performed by the United States Naval Academy Men’s Glee Club under the direction of John Barry Talley, 1977 (.flac file)
• "Anchors Aweigh" (mp3 file; part II of medley)
• "Anchors Aweigh" done as instrumental band march (.wav file)
• free-scores.com