The New York Times discovers the greatest marching band on the planet:

Before there was “Jump Around,” there was “You’ve Said It All.”

The blasting of House of Pain’s 1992 song “Jump Around” from the loudspeakers between the third and fourth quarters at Camp Randall Stadium in Madison, Wis., and the way that 80,000 fans follow the song’s instructions and thus create the sensation of an earthquake (the press box really does shake), have become a media sensation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHYgwC4fyhM

“Jump Around” made its debut in its modern form, according to Barry Alvarez, the former Wisconsin football coach and current athletic director, on Oct. 10, 1998, when Wisconsin hosted Purdue and its record-setting quarterback, Drew Brees.

But two decades earlier, the Budweiser jingle “You’ve Said It All” occupied center stage, until it was thought to be too raucous and was banished to a postgame celebration now known as the Fifth Quarter.

“I came here at a time when football fortunes were pretty poor,” said Michael Leckrone, who arrived in Madison in 1969 and has directed the university’s marching band since 1975. “We tried to make it a little more showbiz.”

But he might have gone too far. The last straw, Leckrone said, came after the playing of “You’ve Said It All” during a 22-19 victory over Oregon early in the 1978 season. The stadium shook so much that Athletic Director Elroy Hirsch put a stop to it.

The song itself was an early-1970s advertising ditty composed by the jingle writer Steve Karmen. “When you say Budweiser,” it goes, “you’ve said it all.” Wisconsin fans replace “Budweiser” with “Wisconsin.”

Leckrone had begun to anchor a smaller, though still raucous, postgame celebration around “Beer Barrel Polka” — “I figured it’s Wisconsin; everyone knows how to polka,” said Leckrone, who is from Indiana — and soon several other songs were added, including “You’ve Said It All.”

Glenn Miller of The Wisconsin State Journal named the postgame festivities the Fifth Quarter, and Wisconsin put a “5” on the scoreboard after games.

These days, several thousand fans can be counted on to stay after for the band’s 20- to 30-minute performance in and near the north end zone.

Attendance varies, depending mainly on whether the Badgers won, Leckrone said. Cold and snow did not deter a sizable crowd from sticking around after last weekend’s 59-24 victory over Nebraska. That game had the coldest starting temperature, 26 degrees, of any game at Camp Randall in 50 years, the athletic department said.

The band launched into the theme from “2001: A Space Odyssey.” Dancers formed circles around other dancers, who made snow angels; only Bucky Badger, the mascot, declined, presumably not wanting to ruin his nice striped sweater.

It was difficult to make out all that was going on as the snow’s volume increased, which was probably why Leckrone conducted from the top of a step ladder, which helpers periodically moved to different points on the field. There was “Hey! Baby,” “Tequila,” “The Time Warp” and, of course, “You’ve Said It All.” The crowd stood and swayed on cue. The sousaphone players formed a line.

Mel Rush, a sophomore, said her fellow band members enjoyed the Fifth Quarter as much as the spectators did. Though choreographed, it is their most recreational activity.

“After a long week of working, going out to a game — you just take out your stress,” she said.

This held true even though she insisted she had the most difficult job: As a cymbal player, she is periodically required to perform “flips,” in which she flicks her wrists, stylishly rotating the crash cymbals, which are metal discs that cannot help brushing against her sleeve.

“It’s the hardest thing in the cold,” she said.

Let’s fill in some holes and correct a couple of things. (For one thing: Leckrone started as the marching band director in 1969.) The “Bud Song” was originally a country song, “You’ve Said It All,” the punch line of which, “When you say love, you’ve said it all,” became “When you say Bud-wei-ser, you’ve said it all,” and then of course “When you say Wis-con-sin, you’ve said it all.” (And, over at La Follette High School, “When you say La-Fol-lette, you’ve said it all.” Said song was not permitted to be played more than once per game at La Follette until the 1982 basketball postseason, when there was a state title to win.) Miller Brewing Co. did the same thing a decade later with the Oak Ridge Boys’ “American Made,” turning that into “Miller’s Made the American Way.”

YSIA became popular in the 1972-73 season as the UW hockey team was on the way to its first national championship when every other major UW sport, to put it bluntly, sucked. The aforementioned Oregon win was, unfortunately, actually a tie, but a comeback tie, propelled, legend has it, by the band’s frantically playing YSIA to the point where, indeed, the upper deck at Camp Randall Stadium started moving.

Even though a UW engineering professor reported later that the upper deck was designed to move so that more serious things wouldn’t happen, YSIA was for years not played until the Fifth Quarter, and supposedly not until the upper deck was somewhat emptied out.

Which doesn’t mean Leckrone was averse to faking out the fans. During the 1983 Homecoming show, we played the “Sabre Dance,” accompanied by an old fire truck driven onto the field. Leckrone ran up to the top of the ladder, and we played the first four measures of YSIA … followed by “On Wisconsin.” The reverse during the Fifth Quarter was to play the opening of “Varsity,” with the fans adding the usual “Sing!”, followed instead by the tuba opening of YSIA. During a concert at the Uihlein Performing Arts Center in Milwaukee, the YSIA open was followed by Miller Brewing Co.’s second attempt at a beer song, “Welcome to Miller Time.” (I think Miller wrote a big check for the concert.) There was also a chorale version, which I got a kick out of playing to see how long it would take the fans to realize what we were playing.

There were also variations. The “studio” version (once actually recorded at the UW Stock Pavilion) …

… sounds staid compared with any live version. (Notice the difference between the beginnings and ends.)

Before I got to the band, the oompah opening had been replaced by the trumpets playing a circus theme. Around 1984, an Olympic year, that was replaced by the familiar notes of “Bugler’s Dream.” Around Christmas, you could fit in “Jingle Bells,” followed by the start of “Auld Lang Syne.” (If you think that’s a lot, listen during a band show for the number of times you hear the four notes of “On Wisconsin” in unexpected places.)

By the late ’80s, Camp Randall Stadium was starting to become populated by fans dressed as empty seats due to bad football, for which coach Don Mor(t)on and poor Athletic Department management can be blamed. In those days the band and the Fifth Quarter were the only real reasons to go to games. As time went on, such songs as “Jumpin’ at the Woodside” (which usually preceded YSIA and was played after the third quarter before the House of Pain existed) and “Wipeout” faded in favor of others, though the Chicken Dance has endured, regrettably to some. (A former boss of mine said that “Dance Little Bird” was his cue to leave.)

The Fifth Quarter was legend even on the road. In 1983, we kept playing at the late Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome after beating Minnesota 56-17 until they turned the lights out on us. The next year, at Michigan, our pregame began with the Michigan students booing us. By the Fifth Quarter, the Michigan fans were booing their own band whenever they played, and we got cheered. On our two most epic road trips — the 1984 Hall of Fame Bowl in Birmingham, Ala., and the 1986 Las Vegas trip — our Fifth Quarter was the main postgame attraction, even though the Kentucky and UNLV band were also there.

Except for the Minnesota game, every game in the previous paragraph was a Badger loss. It’s only been since 1993 that the Badger football team was worthy of the band. (Although I would argue the band is still more fun to watch. Had Leckrone been a football coach, his team would have every gadget play known to the football world, and some that aren’t.)