History
The song was composed by Clyde D. Sandgren, a 1932 BYU graduate. Clyde later served at BYU as general counsel, a vice president, and for four years as the Alumni Association president. He died in 1989 and left ownership of the song to his son, Clyde D. Sandgren, Jr. (Dee). Only Dee and BYU have the rights to the song.
In 1947, Clyde Sandgren registered The Cougar Song with the U.S. Copyright Office, and renewed the work's copyright registration in 1975. The song was dedicated by its composer especially "To all BYU students who so valiantly served their country in World War II."
The Cougar Song is not the only college song BYU has had in its history. In 1899 Annie Pike Greenwood wrote "The College Song," which for many years stood as the school's main song until The Cougar Song was written. Even afterwards, the song was still sung at alumni and other functions.
The lyrics, as sung at BYU events, were altered from the original version sometime in the 1990s due to pressure from women's groups on BYU campus. The lyric "stalwart men and true" was changed to "Loyal, strong, and true."
Read more about this topic: The Cougar Song
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“It is my conviction that women are the natural orators of the race.”
—Eliza Archard Connor, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 9, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)
“He wrote in prison, not a History of the World, like Raleigh, but an American book which I think will live longer than that. I do not know of such words, uttered under such circumstances, and so copiously withal, in Roman or English or any history.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Revolutions are the periods of history when individuals count most.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)