Things You Didn't Know About the Cachalot Hymn
Just about everyone who has ever attended a campfire during Summer Camp at Cachalot has probably heard the staff singing the Cachalot Hymn, sometimes called Farewell to Cachalot. Current and former camp staff members in particular have a special fondness for the song:
From the camp upon the lakeside
To the place we know so well,
Go men of faith and courage Scouts are we.
Though we wander through this wild world, your spell on us remains
And we'll always sing your praises loud and true
Here's to the camp we'll always love
Cachalot
With its lakes and its hills and its starry skies
Cachalot
Happy faces everywhere
cheerful voices fill the air
Lord bless Her with whom none compare
Cachalot
If you're like most people, you probably don't know where the tune came from. We're here to clear that up.
The What Song??
The tune of the Cachalot Hymn comes from a song written in 1909 for a men's a capella singing group at Yale University, called the Whiffenpoof Song, aka Old Whiff. You read that correctly: Whiffenpoof. The Whiffenpoofs of Yale are the world's oldest and possibly best-well-known collegiate a capella group. The Whiffs would gather and perform weekly at Mory's Temple Bar, a long-time hangout for Yale students. The song itself, usually credited to Meade Minnigerode, George S. Pomeroy, and Tod B. Galloway, goes like this:
To the tables down at Mory's
To the place where Louie dwells
To the dear old Temple bar we love so well
Sing the Whiffenpoofs assembled with their glasses raised on high
And the magic of their singing casts its spell
Yes, the magic of their singing of the songs we love so well
"Shall I Wasting" and "Mavourneen" and the rest
We will serenade our Louie while life and voice shall last
Then we'll pass and be forgotten with the rest
We're poor little lambs who have lost our way
Baa, baa, baa
We're little black sheep who have gone astray
Baa, baa, baa
Gentleman songsters off on a spree
Doomed from here to eternity
Lord have mercy on such as we
Baa, baa, baa
The Whiffenpoof Song has even been recorded a number of times by popular artists. The most successful version was recorded by Bing Crosby accompanied by the Fred Waring Glee Club in June of 1947, and went as high as #7 on the charts. Crosby and Bob Hope sang snippets of the song in their 1952 road flick Road to Bali Other versions of the song were recorded by Rudy Valee in 1937 and Elvis Presley in 1968.
You can hear Bing Crosby's version here if you have QuickTime installed, or download the song (MP3, 532KB).
While the origins of the Whiffenpoof Song are themselves still subject to debate, even among the Whiffs themselves, all accounts agree that its lyrics are based on, or a parody of, Rudyard Kipling's The Gentleman Rankers.
What? Kipling, Again?
Kipling's works keep cropping up in Scouting -- Baden-Powell was apparently fond of the stories, and you're most likely familiar with names like Akela and Kim (as in Kim's Game.) Many of Kiplings stories were set in the locales occupied by the British Empire, including India and Africa, where Baden-Powell made his name in the military before founding the world Scouting movement.
For completeness, here is the verse to The Gentleman Rankers:
To the legion of the lost ones, to the cohort of the damned,
To my brethren in their sorrow overseas,
Sings a gentleman of England cleanly bred, machinely crammed,
And a trooper of the Empress, if you please.
Yea, a trooper of the forces who has run his own six horses,
And faith he went the pace and went it blind,
And the world was more than kin while he held the ready tin,
But to-day the Sergeant's something less than kind.
We're poor little lambs who've lost our way,
Baa! Baa! Baa!
We're little black sheep who've gone astray,
Baa--aa--aa!
Gentlemen-rankers out on the spree,
Damned from here to Eternity,
God ha' mercy on such as we,
Baa! Yah! Bah!
Oh, it's sweet to sweat through stables, sweet to empty kitchen slops,
And it's sweet to hear the tales the troopers tell,
To dance with blowzy housemaids at the regimental hops
And thrash the cad who says you waltz too well.
Yes, it makes you cock-a-hoop to be "Rider" to your troop,
And branded with a blasted worsted spur,
When you envy, O how keenly, one poor Tommy being cleanly
Who blacks your boots and sometimes calls you "Sir".
If the home we never write to, and the oaths we never keep,
And all we know most distant and most dear,
Across the snoring barrack-room return to break our sleep,
Can you blame us if we soak ourselves in beer?
When the drunken comrade mutters and the great guard-lantern gutters
And the horror of our fall is written plain,
Every secret, self-revealing on the aching white-washed ceiling,
Do you wonder that we drug ourselves from pain?
We have done with Hope and Honour, we are lost to Love and Truth,
We are dropping down the ladder rung by rung,
And the measure of our torment is the measure of our youth.
God help us, for we knew the worst too young!
Our shame is clean repentance for the crime that brought the sentence,
Our pride it is to know no spur of pride,
And the Curse of Reuben holds us till an alien turf enfolds us
And we die, and none can tell Them where we died.
We're poor little lambs who've lost our way,
Baa! Baa! Baa!
We're little black sheep who've gone astray,
Baa--aa--aa!
Gentlemen-rankers out on the spree,
Damned from here to Eternity,
God ha' mercy on such as we,
Baa! Yah! Bah!
Unanswered Questions
We're still not sure of two major points — who was responsible for adapting the Whiffenpoof Song as the Cachalot Hymn, and when the Cachalot Hymn was first sung. If you can shed any light on the issue, please feel free to contact us at curator@cachalotalumni.org. We hope you've found this information useful!
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This page was last modified on Tue May 20th 2008.
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