'Our Cohogs, They Play One..."

By Joseph Rago | Tuesday, May 11, 2004

The Green Key weekend historically marked the occasion when the 'Hums' were performed at the College. The Hums, dating from 1899, were clever and humorous tunes composed by the fraternities and presented by their pledges for the amusement of all. In the spirit of good-natured competition, the Hums were judged by faculty and administrators, with a small purse going annually to the house with the best song. Of course, the College being what it was, things gradually degenerated. Traditionally, performers were attired in crisp white shirts and pressed pants as black as night; by the late sixties, the standards were somewhat less fastidious (see accompanying photo-graph). The content slipped as well. Over the years, the songs became more and more risqué, and, ultimately, entirely inappropriate.

Courtesy Dartmouth College Library

— Hums begins to degenerate. —

'The Cohog Song' is perhaps the most infamous Hum, debuting during the spring of 1975. Those were heady days at the College, women having been first admitted some three years previous. The Hanover Plain was hardly a hospitable place for the new co-eds. The male-to-female ratio, I'm told, was something like eighty-three-to-one. One evening before Green Key, some miscreant stole the toilet seats from every single female restroom on campus. "Our Cohogs," as the Hum was officially titled, hardly added to the cordial ambiance. Performed to the melody of "This Old Man," it proclaimed that Dartmouth's new women were "all here to spoil our fun," that "they all ruined our masculine heaven," that "they're all a bunch of f

'Our Cohogs, They Play One..."

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