“Wildcat”: Texas A&M’s “missing” fight song

From at least 1911 into the 1940s, Texas Aggies rallied to the Aggie Band’s rendition of a song called Wildcat — and though you might not recognize the song by name, you already know the tune.

A 1921 news story referred to "the battle song of the Farmers: ‘What makes the wildcat wild, boys,’” and Texas A&M’s 1935 yearbook said, "The strains of Wildcat will never fail to bring the twelfth man into action." 

No recording has yet surfaced from those days; contact us at AggieNetwork@AggieNetwork.com if you have one, or any sheet music!

But that old-time Wildcat is very likely the same piece of music you know as part of the Aggie War Hymn and as the flourish the Aggie Band plays after first downs, which is still called Wildcat.

Listen here to the modern Aggie Band's Wildcat: 

“Until the War Hymn came along, it was used as the A&M fight song, but the problem was, other schools used it,” said Jeff Dunn ’76, a former student body president and Aggie Band trumpet player who has heavily researched the Aggie War Hymn.

The 1915 Texas A&M yearbook supports that: "Celebrations after a victory are always headed by the band playing the college airs such as ‘Love Nobody But You,’ and ‘What Makes the Wildcat Wild.’" 

Lyrics for those two songs (sharing one tune) appear in a 1918 songbook for college students:

But 1918 was also the year that an Aggie serving in World War I wrote the words for the Aggie War Hymn. J.V. "Pinky" Wilson, Class of 1920, combined some existing Aggie yells and the tune of a barbershop song (later published as Goodbye, My Coney Island Baby). Aggie band directors helped refine it. 

With Saw Varsity’s Horns Off, Wildcat and Hot Time added as a medley at the end, the Aggie War Hymn became the Texas Aggies’ official song.

In 1921, there was a brief effort to make “Wildcats” the Aggie nickname and mascot. The Battalion even proclaimed that “the Wildcat is destined to become the mascot.” But Texas A&M athletes voted against it (“It was felt that a new name for the teams would create a breach between the Aggies of yesterday and the Aggies of tomorrow”), and it never stuck.

Another part of the Wildcat song's legacy at Texas A&M is the gestures and calls that Aggies now call “wildcats,” one for each academic class, which are done at the end of yells and other celebratory moments.

In 1942, the first edition of a cadet handbook called “The Cadence” said, “When yell practice is announced in the mess halls, all freshmen will rise, wave their hands and yell as when the band plays ‘Wildcat’ at regular yell practices.”

That’s still today’s freshman wildcat. The “whoop” for seniors and juniors began spreading among Aggie students in the 1960s, and the rest of today’s Aggie wildcats seem to have developed in the 1970s-80s.