The best time of the year is officially here, college football season! Alabama Crimson Tide football is what every Alabama alumni, student and fan looks forward to each year. One of the main things Crimson Tide fans look forward to, besides the Tide winning, is singing “Dixieland Delight” as it blares over the speakers during the fourth quarter. If you have never stayed until the fourth quarter of the game to witness fans moving their shakers in sync to the beat of “Dixieland Delight” do you even love the Tide?
“Dixieland Delight” is an original song from the band Alabama, fitting right? The song was released in 1983, and quickly became the band’s ninth number-one hit, according to Rolling Stones.
The song then started to be played at every football game played in Bryant-Denny Stadium, becoming the Crimson Tide’s unofficial theme song. Fans have even developed their own lyrics to fill in breaks between the lines of the music.
If you’re wondering what the lyrics are, you are probably a freshman or have never stayed all four quarters (shame on you). To summarize the fan-made lyrics, they dis our biggest rival teams with a cuss word, sometimes more than just one, and, of course, a lot of “Roll Tide."
The lyrics show the opposing team, the fans, and Alabama as a whole’s personality, and spirit we have for the Crimson Tide. Here are the lyrics you would scream at the top of your lungs during a football game:
Spend my dollar (ON BEER),
Parked in a holler ‘neath the mountain moonlight (ROLL TIDE),
Hold her uptight (AGAINST THE WALL),
Make a little lovin’ (ALL NIGHT),
A little turtle dovin’ on a Mason Dixon night (**** AUBURN),
Fits my life (AND LSU), oh so right (AND TENNESSEE, TOO),
My Dixieland Delight.
The last home football game of the season was the Iron Bowl against Auburn University. Alumni, families and students of both universities packed all 101,000 plus seats in Bryant-Denny Stadium for the most anticipated game of the year.
As many may know, Auburn University is Alabama's most despised enemy school in every way shape and form, especially when it comes to football. That being said, fans and especially student’s favorite lyric to scream on the top of their lungs is "**** AUBURN”. When it was time for the famous anthem to play, the fans took it in their hands to change every single side lyric to “**** AUBURN.”
Multiple YouTube videos with 10,000 plus views, one with 35,000 plus views and Vines of the song from the Iron Bowl went viral on the Internet. In all the chaos of those videos being shared, there was one other important post being shared on Facebook.
A post stating that “Dixieland Delight” was going to be banned from being played in the stadium, which immediately set fans in an outrage. Even though the University wasn’t ecstatic with the publicity they were receiving from the vulgar and disrespectful chants, I believe there was never an official statement from Administration saying the anthem was being banned. Whether the censorship of the song is a rumor or a real statement, fans are not happy.
A senator from the University of Alabama’s Student Government, Patrick Fitzgerald, decided to use his legislative power to take matters into his own hands. Fitzgerald created a Facebook event “Bring Back Dixieland Delight” where he stated, “I have written legislation (supported by the band Alabama itself) to reinstate our great game day tradition.”
Many fans may not know, considering they did not stay for the four quarters of the game against Middle Tennessee, "Dixieland Delight" in fact was played for them team to get pumped in the last quarter. I guess someone decided to start a silly rumor and did not realize how fans seriously fans would take the false statement. All of the stressing was for nothing, but now we will be able to scream "Dixieland Delight" in Bryant-Denny for the rest of our college years and hopefully many more as alumni.
