Voices Through Time

A Lyrical History

While music may not be the first thing that comes to mind when tracking the long and distinguished history of Tabor Academy, it serves as an evocative and effective way to do so. The school’s story is often charted through the manifold achievements of students, staff, and alumni, improvements to the campus, and the development of academic, athletic, and artistic programs. However, the various songs and hymns sung by the Tabor community throughout its history serve as a reflection of these more customary markers, while simultaneously adding a cultural and emotional depth that more traditional sources may otherwise lack.

In addition to reflecting the school’s history and character, these songs contribute directly to it as they have waxed and waned in relevance over the decades. For example, the school’s “Football Song,” largely forgotten now, was once important enough that an edition of the Tabor Log from 1932 encouraged new students to “cut out and preserve” the lyrics, as they would be “expected to know them very soon.” Also featured in the paper are the lyrics to the now-defunct “Cheer, Cheer, Tabor, For You,” composed the previous year to honor Headmaster Captain Walter H. Lillard on his fiftieth birthday. While both of these have faded from the school’s contemporary musical repertoire, others are occasionally added or rediscovered. As school leadership and music faculty change over the decades, songs that they either favor, introduce, or create, supplement or displace existing ones. For example, during twenty-two years as choral teacher at Tabor, David Horne introduced “The Tabor Chapel Song.” Though the song faded from relevance following his retirement in 2018, it still holds a special place in the heart of every student who entered Chapel, accompanied by the notes of its melody.

This pattern holds throughout Tabor’s history. Songs enjoy a period of relevancy, often reflecting an important aspect of the school or a moment of wider cultural significance. Others have been single, memorable performances. Once-notable songs include the 1909 “Graduation Ode” set to the tune of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” a 1940 ode to the Tabor Boy set to the music of “Shenandoah,” a 1986 adaptation of the then-popular “Super-Bowl Shuffle” (aptly renamed to “The Seawolf Shuffle”) and a fight song, “Seawolves Mighty Seawolves,” deployed by Tabor students against Holderness School, Tabor’s rival at the time, during the annual Holderness Day Tournaments in 2005. To those who sing them, these songs can appear as fundamental to the school as a fresh breeze off of Sippican Harbor, yet many of them often fade into obscurity over the decades. Sometimes, however, these songs are rediscovered and reintegrated into school life.

Though the venerable “Tabor Alma Mater” is etched into the mind of every current student, faculty member, and recent graduate, it has not always been considered “the school song.” Others, most notably the “Tabor Evening Song” and the “Tabor Hymn” have occupied this position, while the “Tabor Alma Mater” either stood alongside or languished in obscurity. Each of these songs has its own history, shaped by the experience of the members of the Tabor community who sang the lyrics, played the melodies, and carved them into the school’s character and legacy.

Tabor Evening Song

The “Tabor Evening Song” was one of the first fully original compositions in the school’s history. A 1934 edition of the Tabor Log describes how the song was performed for the first time “by the [Tabor] quartet in the soft air of the famed Lillard Hall living room.” The Log notes that the lyrics were composed by Dorothy Leavitt, wife of Tabor teacher Laurence G. Leavitt, while the melody was written by music teacher, Gilbert B. Parker. The song was an instant success. A commencement program from the following year notes that a rendition of the “Evening Song” was performed by the Glee Club as part of the ceremony. Excerpts from the Log and successive commencement programs show that the song was a fixture at such events; however, following the departure of Captain Lillard in 1942, it began to fall out of fashion.

The lyrics were first recorded in that same 1934 edition of the Log. They describe Tabor’s campus, capturing sights familiar to any member of the Tabor community, such as a “winter sunrise…above the frozen bay,” the “evening shadows in the [Lillard] oval,” and “morning mist upon the waters.” However, the song also captures elements of the school which have been lost to time. For instance, it describes a “trail” which refers to a once-important pathway designated for seniors. The “sweet smell of pines” emphasizes how the campus used to be saturated with dense pine groves. While the loss of these features reflect the realities of an ever-changing campus, the song’s concluding line—“Tabor, we won’t leave you wholly”—is a sentiment shared by alumni across the decades.

Unfortunately, Parker’s original musical accompaniment, which, according to the Log, was “as beautiful as the lyrics,” has been lost to us. Fortunately, the melody is preserved within Vermont Academy’s own “Evening Song.” In the same year that Tabor’s “Evening Song” was unveiled, Leavitt assumed the role of Headmaster at Vermont Academy, and was followed there shortly by Parker. In 1938, the Leavitt-Parker duo introduced the Vermont “Evening Song,” with lyrics nearly identical to Tabor’s, albeit tailored to fit the distinguishing features of their new institution. For example, instead of a “winter sunrise” and “morning mist upon the waters,” Vermont’s “Evening Song” describes “hidden trout pools,” and “morning mist upon the mountains.” It can be safely assumed that Parker’s earlier melody was recycled, as the lyrics to the Tabor “Evening Song” fit seamlessly into the music for the Vermont version. Now, we have a tune to put to our version, allowing us to peer back into our own history and imagine the music that first pierced the air of Lillard Living Room.

Tabor Hymn

Two events coincided to bring this song to Tabor: the appointment of Peter M. Webster as Headmaster in 1976, and the release of the BBC series “To Serve Them All My Days” in 1980, a show about a PTSD-stricken WWI veteran who becomes a teacher at an English boarding school. The song which became known as the “Tabor Hymn” is the theme for “To Serve Them All My Days,” which is officially known as the “Bamfylde School Song” in the BBC series. Under Webster, the song was introduced to the school and became a fixture of Tabor life during the 1980s and 1990s. Students and faculty regularly sung it during Chapel, and it was performed at other notable events such as Baccalaureate.

While the song was a component of Tabor’s more official programming, it also became an inside joke between students. A Log article from 1985 recalls a “freshman raid,” a lighthearted school tradition where upperclassmen “attacked” freshmen by chasing them around the Chapel field with water balloons. To top off the prank, the raiders proceeded next door to Spring Street dorm, where they performed an impromptu serenade of the “Tabor Hymn” to the unsuspecting dorm parents, including the Dean. A 1988 edition of the Log recalls how a heavy metal performance of the “Tabor Hymn” at a “Gong Show,” was “probably the only enjoyable rendition of the Tabor Hymn that anyone’s ever going to hear.” There are numerous other references (often satirical) to the Hymn in the Log, yearbook blurbs, and alumni recollections from this time; however, it appears that it faded from use in the early years of Jay Stroud’s tenure as headmaster.

Alma Mater

It is only fitting to end this foray into Tabor’s musical history with a description of the “Tabor Alma Mater.” The first recorded usage of the song is found in a 1925 yearbook, which notes that the Glee Club and Choir, under the direction of French and Drama Teacher Kenneth Bouvè, “staged several songs (at) Stunt Night, as well as introducing the School Alma Mater.” The following year, on the school’s 50th anniversary, the lyrics appeared in the yearbook and in an edition of the Log. While the song’s lyrics are often attributed to Bouvè, another possible contributor is Bessie Corse, Class of 1926, whose family preserved a copy of the lyrics she typed into her school notes. Regardless of whether Bouvè composed alone or with assistance, the song is one of many examples of school Alma Mater’s “borrowing” music and lyrics from one another. The lyrics to the “University of Pennsylvania Alma Mater” might seem familiar to anyone acquainted with our own.

The UPenn Alma Mater was composed in 1897. It was the first school to utilize the tune of the 1833 “Russian Hymn” which has become the template for many other Almae Matres. Songs following this tune frequently share lyrical similarities, as highlighted by the many similarities between the first two stanzas of the UPenn Alma Mater and our own.

Soon after it was introduced by the Glee Club, the Alma Mater assumed a prominent role within the school. A 1930 edition of the Log printed the lyrics and instructed students to memorize them. Yearbook excerpts and editions of the Log from around this time suggest that the song had assumed a role similar to the one it occupies today—as a conclusion to formal events such as Commencement, Chapel, and graduate gatherings. This pattern of usage persisted into the 1940s, when the outbreak of WWII, Tabor’s designation as a Naval Honor School in 1941, and the departure of Headmaster Lillard in 1942, brought changes to the school’s traditions, culture, and songs. Under the new Headmaster James W. Wickenden, the Navy Hymn, with its naval association, gained prominence, while the Alma Mater appears to have fallen out of favor. Only sporadic references to the song appear in our archives for the following decades. Tabor’s old hymnals, where the lyrics of the Alma Mater are printed beside the “Evening Song,” were officially discarded in 1960 in favor of newer editions, and the lyrics to the Alma Mater and the “Evening Song” went with them, fading from use and memory for the next twenty years.

A striking reference to the Alma Mater appears in 1980, when Randy Souza ’81, wrote an article in the Log titled “Would You Believe a School Song?” The article, although written in a satirical tone, expresses genuine surprise at the discovery that Tabor actually has an Alma Mater. Souza printed the lyrics and concluded his article by reminding students, “next time you’re behind 22-0, falling behind on a physics test or on your way to the Dean’s Office, remember ‘Hail, dear old Tabor, noble and…” During that decade, the song enjoyed a remarkable resurgence. Dean of Students Jay Houck notes that “by the time I arrived in 1987 … the Tabor Alma Mater … was part of a trio of tunes (including the Tabor Hymn and the Navy Hymn) that figured most prominently in the healthy rotation of songs sung in Chapel in the late ’80s and early ’90s.”

Though the Tabor Hymn faded into obscurity, and the Navy Hymn is typically reserved for special occasions such as Memorial Day Chapel, the Alma Mater remains a key component to life at Tabor. The lyrics are etched into the memory of every member of the Tabor Community, and the song is a fixture at crucial events such as Chapel gatherings and commencement ceremonies. Just hearing the tune has the effect of transporting one back to their time at the School by the Sea. This particular power was demonstrated in March of 2020, when a group of students and faculty performed a special rendition of the Alma Mater. The school was reeling from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the community was scattered, unsure of what the future held for both Tabor and the world at large. Members of the Tabor community each recorded a rendition of the song, and their efforts were edited together in a video message that was sent to the entire school.

As a student who was attending Tabor at the time, the video had a profound impact on me. For a brief moment, the fear, uncertainty, and doubt brought about by the pandemic dissipated, and it felt as if I was sitting in Chapel again, listening as the voices of the entire community rose together as one. Charlie Simmons ’21

This transportative power comes from the fact that, in a way, the song is Tabor. The final two verses (which are uniquely our own) highlight our rich maritime tradition, as well as the way that our community embodies the values of preparedness, coherence, and proficiency inherent to our motto “All-A-Taut-O!” It is this longevity and endurance, the way that the song has become rooted in our community, and this acute descriptive power, that lends the Tabor Alma Mater its immense significance and value.