Chant of the Week: Cincy Till I Die
Chant of the Week: Cincy Till I Die
Bill Wolf
Creating chants is often an evolutionary process. A song with a catchy melody seems like a good candidate or some lyrical concept appears to resonate with supporters. But more of these chants die on the vine rather than blossom into a success. But each failure, leads to new ideas and sometimes chants can blend together.
Cincy Till I Die has an interesting history. It started off as two chants. The first was titled “Cincy Till I Die” and though the concept is intense, the melody was soft and the chant was unsuccessful.
The second chant was inspired by Crocodile Rock. Max Ellerbe, Knight’s chant master, wanted a chant based on Crocodile Rock. The chorus just seemed like a perfect melody to base a chant on. Check out Elton John’s hit at 1:07.
A simple chant was constructed based on that melody called “FCC Has So Much Fun.” Where the melody of this chant is obviously strong, the lyrics were too minimal and didn’t convey a strong enough message.
So how do you solve a strong melody with weak lyrics and a strong lyrical concept with a weaker melody? Well obviously, you take the best of both. You adapt the Cincy till I die concept to the Crocodile Rock melody.
But still the final product didn’t quite click until Chris White dropped a magical nugget of information into the equation. Barcelona’s supporter group, Blaugrana Army was already doing a chant based on Crocodile Rock, but they did it as a call and response.
Call and response chants were very successful for the Bailey. Everything was new and having supporters repeat whatever the capos called out made it easy to learn new chants quickly.
So, Cincy till I die lyrics are adapted to the Crocodile Rock melody and converted into a call and response chant.
Lyrics
I'm Cincy Till I Die (I'm Cincy Till I Die)
Don't Need A Reason Why (Don't Need A Reason Why)
Oh, FC Cincinnati (Oh, FC Cincinnati)
I'm Orange and Blue for life (I'm Orange and Blue for life)
Allez Allez Allez (Allez Allez Allez)x4
Notes
This chant starts off as a call and response. The capos will call out the first half of each line and part of the line within the parenthesis is repeated back by the supporters. Call and response chants catch on quickly because the supporters don’t have to learn the words, they just repeat what they hear.
To keep chants simple, they are often filled in with “ole” or “allez.” In this case, the second section is filled with “allez.” The second section follows the same melody as the first section, so the melody is known and there are no new words to learn.
When this chant is repeated, the call and response is dropped, and everyone sings their part together. The last note is held out to sustain the melody and now we are following the “Crocodile Rock” melody clearly. When the chant repeats again, it returns to the call and response. Each repetition alternates between call and response and singing the melody together.
After repeating a few times, to keep the energy up, the Knights may decide to drop the call and response and continue multiple repetitions with the melody sung in plenum. A classic example of this would be at the end of a game to keep the energy up and push the team to hold strong to the final whistle.
Listen
Thanks again to Max Ellerbe who put together this simple video available on the Knights of the Bailey You Tube channel.
Inspiration
Here is the video of the chant from Barcelona’s supporter group, Blaugrana Army that pulled it all together for this chant and provided the inspiration.
Coincidences
Cincy Till I Die was beta tested at the end of 2017 and rolled out at the beginning of 2018 in the USL preseason. Later that season, Liverpool fans were celebrating a huge moment in their history, singing what appeared to be a chant based on “L’Estate Sta Finendo,” a 1985 hit from the Italian disco duo Righeira.
The melody is amazingly similar to Crocodile Rock though there are some small variations. Regardless, suddenly it looks like FC Cincinnati is doing the super popular chant from Liverpool. But now you know….. we did it first.
Previous Chants
Read about previous chants of the week:
Forza Cincinnati
Hey FC Cincinnati
Cincy Chants
Did you know there was an app for your phone that would tell you what chant was being sung by the Bailey? Check it out.