"Big C" "
Big C" was composed in 1913 by Harold P. Williams, with lyrics by Norman Loyall McLaren. It was written to commemorate the construction of the large concrete "C" in 1905 on the "rugged Eastern foothills" of the Berkeley campus. The song was the winning entry in the
Daily Californian school song competition in 1913.
Adoption by UCLA From the late 1940s until the 1960s, UCLA and Cal alternatively hosted a college football doubleheader game as part of the "All University Weekend". The first game featured
UC Davis vs.
UCSB. In one of the last "All U Weekends", Kelly James, then associate director of the
UCLA Marching Band and alumnus of the
Cal Band, wrote an arrangement of "Big C" for a halftime show performed by the combined marching bands from UCLA,
UC Davis, and Cal. Afterward, UCLA continued using James' arrangement of "Big C" as its fight song, adding their own lyrics and renaming it "Sons of Westwood". It was soon adopted as UCLA's fight song.
Controversy Cal fans, most notably Cal band director James Berdahl, were enraged over James' theft of their song. A bitter exchange ensued between Berdahl and James for the next several years concerning the legal and ethical grounds for James' adaptation of the song. Finally, on February 18, 1969, UCLA lawyers were told by the
Copyright Office of the
Library of Congress that "Big C" had never been copyrighted, and therefore was in the
public domain. However, whenever Cal plays UCLA and "Sons of Westwood" is played, Cal fans sing a parody ending, "but damn you, it's 'Big C. Likewise, whenever Cal plays "Big C", UCLA plays their signature "tag" at the end, which is a part of "Sons of Westwood" but not "Big C". On the UCLA Band CD
True Blue, in 2009, it was named
"Big C [UCLA Fight Song]". It was again renamed to
Bruin Warriors and new lyrics were written, as the song did not reflect the demographic makeup of the band, which has included women since Title IX in 1972. ==See also==