With football season around the corner, we were amused to see this ad in our November 27, 1901 issue promoting the sheet music for "Yale Boola March," the song we know today as "Boola Boola." The account of its composition given in the ad later became the subject of much debate: The song was certainly based on “La Hoola Boola,” a show tune by African American songwriters Bob Cole and Billy Johnson. The publishers later claimed that they had bought the copyright for that song and rearranged it as “Boola,” then hired Yale student Allan Hirsh ’01 to pose as the composer so as to help promote it on campus. Hirsh denied the claim. Read Fred Shapiro's account of the controversy here, and hear both songs here.
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