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You are here: Home / IBM / Songs of the IBM

Songs of the IBM

2011/06/11 By Rob 22 Comments

A few years ago there came into my possession a curious piece of IBM history, a thin paperback volume of 54 pages, privately printed, entitled “Songs of the IBM, 1937 Edition”. The opening page lays out the context:

For thirty-seven years, the gatherings and conventions of our IBM workers have expressed in happy songs the fine spirit of loyal cooperation of good fellowship which has promoted the signal success of our great IBM Corporation in its truly International Service for the betterment of business and benefit to mankind.

In appreciation of the able and inspiring leadership of our beloved President, Mr. Thos. J. Watson, and our unmatchable staff of IBM Executives, and in recognition of the noble aims of purposes of our International Service and Products, this 1937 edition of IBM songs solicits your vocal approval by hearty cooperation in our song-fests at our conventions and fellowship gatherings.

It is signed “Yours in International Service, Harry S. Evans”. More on Evans later.

Here’s the index of the 100 songs contained.

After some patriotic songs, it moves to the “I.B.M. Rally Song” called “Ever Onward”:

And then it moves to a series of songs praising Thomas J. Watson. At that point I had an uncomfortable feeling about this. Masses of people singing the praises of their leaders and pledging loyalty is something that is historically tainted. We just don’t do that today, at least not outside of North Korea. But we must be cautious if we try to read 1942 into 1937. In the days before television, and when radio was still young, group singing, to a piano or small band was quite common. Some readers might remember this even reaching into the television era with NBC’s “Sing Along with Mitch” show.

The tradition at IBM was started by Harry Evans in 1925, the man who made IBM sing. Literally. In “The Maverick and his Machine”, Kevin Maney describes:

If Watson sang, IBM would sing. As with the dress code, Watson did not order IBM to sing. That bit of corporate culture started with Harry Evans. Outgoing, attention-seeking, good-natured, wired with energy and shorter than every other man in the room, Evans was always the guy with joke, or the guy willing to laugh at a joke. Watson liked him and promoted him.

Evans loved to sing, and he enjoyed setting his own lyrics to popular songs. …

As the years went on Evans informally assembled quite a few songs about IBM or people at the top of IBM. In 1925 Evans went to Watson and proposed printing a booklet of his IBM songs so that any of the employees could sing them at gatherings. It might be fun, Evans said. Watson liked the idea. At company sales conventions and other gatherings, employees already sang patriotic numbers and songs of good fellowship. Why wouldn’t they want to sing about IBM?

It was not only the IBM President who had a song. Members of the executive team each had a song, including on to “F.C. Elstob, Comptroller”. How often do you see a song written to honor a comptroller? Not very often.

Innovation and patents were important to IBM, even in 1937, as shown in this song, dedicated to “W.M Wilson, Manager, Patent Department”:

Many of us know of the “THINK” motto that Watson popularized. But did you know there was a song, sung to the tune of “Yankee Doodle”?

Not all songs have aged so well, such as “To Our I.B.M. Girls”:

And one parting song, as we come to the 100th anniversary of IBM on June 16th, 2011. It is interesting that in 1937, IBMers considered the founding of the company to have been 1888, not 1911, as indicated in the “Fortieth Anniversary Song of I.B.M”. With a complex corporate history, like IBM has, there are many dates that could celebrated. In any case, if I had any clue what the tune to “Tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys are marching” was, I’d join my colleagues in verse 3.


Addendum (2012-07-13): Several readers have asked about getting a scan of the complete song book. So here it is, the 1937 edition of the Songs of the IBM.

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Comments

  1. Joe R says

    2011/06/11 at 3:14 pm

    ‘Tramp, tramp, tramp’ is sung to the same tune as ‘Jesus loves the little children’.

    Any chance of this being posted online? It is public domain unless someone registered the copyright at the time and then renewed the copyright registration later and there are still groups who get together and sing who could be interested.

    Reply
  2. Rob says

    2011/06/12 at 12:25 pm

    @Joe, I don’t see any copyright on the pamphlet. I just need to make sure I don’t have any additional obligations as an IBM employee. But if that checks out, I’ll scan it to a PDF.

    Reply
  3. Watson Scholar says

    2012/07/08 at 1:15 am

    Rob, did you ever make a scan of this? I would absolutely love to have it. I went to college with a Watson scholarship, and it’s great to see his name in a songbook.

    Reply
  4. Rob says

    2012/07/13 at 5:28 pm

    I’ve added a scan of the compete book. Details above, as an addendum.

    Reply
  5. G T says

    2012/09/01 at 5:48 pm

    Here’s the song on youtube:

    The tune is kind of catchy, first time I’ve seen the songbook in print, it indeed does start on pg 5!

    Actually there still are similar corporate songs in existence, just not in the USA, more in Asia (Korea and Japan).

    Btw, they play this at the IBM exhibit at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View.

    Reply
  6. Inverse Phase says

    2012/09/02 at 12:09 am

    Yo, the link to the scan is broken. Your link needs an http:// before it or everything gets appended to the current page’s directory (for example it currently points to “http://www.robweir.com/blog/2011/06/www.robweir.com/blog/attachments/songs-of-the-ibm.pdf”)

    Reply
  7. Ober says

    2012/09/02 at 6:35 am

    Nice Flash of one of the IBM songs to Jingle Bells.
    http://linbsd.org/ibm.swf

    Reply
  8. Criação de Sites says

    2012/09/02 at 10:05 am

    Thanks for the scan, Rob!

    Reply
  9. Agile says

    2012/09/02 at 4:05 pm

    I think the link of the scan is broken. BTW congratulations for this great article!

    Reply
  10. David says

    2012/09/03 at 6:50 pm

    Rob, the link to the PDF now gives a 404. It’s a shame. I worked IBM Endicott Development Lab, Custom systems from 1961 to 1976. (about 2 generations AFTER the songbook, but sales meetings still included group singing in the ’60’s.)

    Reply
  11. Matt says

    2012/09/03 at 8:14 pm

    Makes me think fondly of my original IBM PC.
    It came with a basic program that would play “Ever Onward”.

    Reply
  12. Jenny says

    2012/09/03 at 11:08 pm

    I think it’s a shame more corporations don’t have official songs! IBM actually has a few recordings of these songs on their website:

    http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/music/music_clips.html

    Reply
  13. Rick Byrd says

    2012/09/04 at 12:55 pm

    The link in the addendum didn’t work for me, it should be http://www.robweir.com/blog/attachments/songs-of-the-ibm.pdf

    Reply
  14. Matt says

    2012/09/09 at 12:26 pm

    Rob,
    The link seems broken….

    Reply
  15. Rob says

    2012/09/17 at 7:35 am

    Sorry about the error in the URL to the PDF scan.

    The correct URL is:

    http://www.robweir.com/blog/attachments/songs-of-the-ibm.pdf

    I’ve corrected it in the post above as well.

    Enjoy!

    -Rob

    Reply
  16. Heather Yager says

    2013/04/30 at 2:00 pm

    We have the song books and a few pressings of the accompanying LP in the Computer History Museum collection – hear a recording: http://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/punched-cards/2/12/2211

    Reply
  17. Heather Yager says

    2013/04/30 at 2:02 pm

    And all the MP3s of the songs: http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/accession/102651538

    Reply

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