Anchors Aweigh: A Song History

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"Anchors Aweigh" started life as a class march at the U.S. Naval Academy. Charles A. Zimmermann, who directed the Academy band from 1887 until his death in 1916 and wrote a march for the graduating class almost every year, supplied the music; the words came from Alfred Hart Miles, a first-class midshipman in the Class of 1907, and the march was dedicated to that class[1][2]. The Band's history says Miles carried his classmates' request for a rousing tune that could also serve at football games, and it frames as legend the story that the two men worked the piece out together at the chapel organ[1]. The title is a sailor's phrase: the anchor has just lifted clear of the bottom, so the voyage is under way[1].

Civil War-era photograph of two sailing frigates at anchor off the Naval Academy shore at Annapolis

Unknown photographer, Frigates “Santee” and “Constitution” off Naval Academy, Annapolis, albumen silver print, 1861–65. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public domain (CC0). Taken decades before the march was written; shown for its Naval Academy setting.

The earliest performance the Academy Band has on record is at the Farewell Ball of February 12, 1906, and the march had its first public hearing at that year's Army–Navy football game at Franklin Field in Philadelphia, which Navy won 10–0 for its first victory over Army since 1900[1]; the Academy's archivists add that the midshipmen sang it at the game[2]. The Morgan Library catalogs a piano edition, "Anchor's Aweigh: March & Two-Step," published by the Rudolph Wurlitzer Co. of Cincinnati under a 1906 copyright and bearing the dedication to the Class of 1907[3]. Columbia released the first commercial recording on June 9, 1920. No original manuscript has been found; the oldest known, now in the Naval Academy Archives, is a 1926 full-band arrangement by Adolph Torovsky, who had been Zimmermann's assistant director before becoming director himself[1].

Miles's original stanzas were written with football in mind and named Army as the opponent[1][2]. Royal Lovell of the Class of 1926 added a third stanza, and George D. Lottman later wrote the verses that became the familiar ones; those were sung until 1997, when the Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy reworked them slightly so they would speak for everyone serving in the Navy[1]. The march is now the Academy's fight song and the Navy's march song, yet Navy sources still describe it as the service's unofficial song; its centennial in 2006 was marked with a commemorative coin[1][2][4].

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Sources

  1. U.S. Naval Academy Band: "Anchors Aweigh".
  2. U.S. Naval Academy, Nimitz Library Special Collections & Archives: "Record Spotlight: USNA Bandmaster Charles Adams Zimmermann's Service Oath".
  3. The Morgan Library & Museum, catalog record: "Anchor's aweigh: march & two-step / Chas. A. Zimmermann".
  4. Dudley Knox Library, Naval Postgraduate School: "Military Music & Sounds: U.S. Navy".