Michigan's State Song Trivia Quiz

Answer:

OK, buckle in, this gets wild quick.

The history of the REAL state song of Michigan, "My Michigan", is a fascinating tale of political embarrassment, creative collaboration, and a copyright oversight that effectively erased a state's official anthem from public memory. That last statement is not hyperbole; go ask any Michigander the name of their state song. Most, of course, couldn't name it, but those who can, always name the wrong one.

This song was born out of an awkward moment at President Franklin D. Roosevelt's 1933 Inaugural Ball, where governors were announced alphabetically alongside their respective state songs. When Maryland was called, the band struck up "Maryland, My Maryland" which is set to the traditional tune of "O Tannenbaum." Michigan's newly elected Governor, William Comstock, turned to Giles Kavanagh, a Detroit News editor accompanying the delegation, and proudly crowed, "They are playing our song, Giles." Kavanagh had to gently correct the Governor, pointing out that Michigan had no official song of its own and that the song the governor knew, "Michigan, My Michigan", was unofficial and just a carbon copy of Maryland's. At that ball, the Michigan delegation was forced to make their grand entrance to "The Victors," the University of Michigan's fight song to the absolute mortification of Comstock.

Embarrassed, Governor Comstock asked his friend, Kavanagh to find out whether Michigan had an official anthem hidden away in its legislative archives. Kavanagh sent a researcher from The Detroit News to look into the state records in Lansing. But after weeks of searching, they found absolutely nothing. Realizing the state was completely without an anthem, Comstock asked Kavanagh to create one. Kavanagh contacted Detroit composer, H. O'Reilly Clint, and together, they wrote "My Michigan" inside the recreation room of The Detroit News building. In 1936, Governor Frank D. Fitzgerald formally designated the new march as the state's song, and in 1937 the Michigan Legislature passed House Concurrent Resolution No. 17 confirming the song as the state song.

OK, so far, so weirdly normal for a state song's journey. In fact, it seems tame compared to Maryland or Louisiana, for goodness sakes....BUT, here is where it goes off the rails.

Despite its official status, the song was almost immediately doomed to total silence due to an unprecedented legal failure by the state government. When the legislature designated "My Michigan" as an official state song, they forgot to purchase the copyright from H. O'Reilly Clint's publishing company (??!!?). Because the writers retained full commercial rights, anyone at all from school choir, to university marching band, to public radio station that wanted to perform the state anthem technically owed the authors private royalty payments - a bit like "Happy Birthday". Rather than having to foot the bill for its own state song, the government chose a policy of silence. The music was quietly tucked away into the dark corners of historical archives, legally locked down under a strict 95-year corporate copyright that will not expire until the end of 2028.

Making this problem SO much worse was an aggressive case of public confusion with the much older tune. If you remember all the way back to the start of this story, the governor thought the band was playing Michigan's song at the 1933 ball, because "Michigan, My Michigan" (not "My Michigan") was the de facto state anthem. Because "My Michigan" was legally radioactive and rarely (if ever - there are conflicting accounts) played, the public naturally defaulted to the unofficial, but better known, song. Over the decades, search engines and public memory have completely paved over Clint and Kavanagh's march, burying the true official anthem under a mountain of algorithm confusion and historic duplicates.

In fact, Yours Truly had a devil of a time tracking it down and finally found a copy of the FULL lyrics and sheet music in the Detroit Historical Society.

Kavanagh crammed the verses with shout outs to Michigan's local industries and contemporary culture. The text proudly cheers for a "lusty Tiger too"-a direct salute to the Detroit Tigers baseball team and celebrates the technological leap "from canoe of birch to motor car." It pays homage to "ev'ry sug-ar beet and ev'ry cop-per bar," alongside localized geographic markers spanning "from Erie's marshes to Ke-wee-naw." It even weaves in foundational history by name-dropping French explorers La Salle and Cadillac, and finally tells us to "hold the torch of Tuebor loft-i-ly". Tuebor is on the Michigan coat of arms and in Latin means "I will defend".

As far as I can find, very few recordings of the music exist anywhere on the internet. Those that do, are either mislabeled and are actually recordings of "Michigan, My Michigan" or are from a different copy of the music located in the Rare Book Room of the Library of Michigan in Lansing which I could not get access to.
I took the liberty of transcribing the one I found at the Detroit Historical Society into ABC player readable notation. If you want to hear it and take the notation below and paste it into a player, you can hear the actual song, in MIDI...but it is the tune. A warning, I am musically inept, and did this by sight. If there are mistakes, please let me know.

I suggest using - "ABC Player and Editor 3.0" to play the music. You can find it through a quick Google search.

X:1
T:My Michigan
C:H. O'Reilly Clint / Giles Kavanagh
M:4/4
L:1/4
Q:1/4=120
K:F
V:Melody
|F A c c|d2 c2|A F G A|F3 z|
|G A B B|c2 B2|G A B c|A3 z|
|c B A G|F2 A2|c c d e|f3 z|
|d d c B|A2 f2|d c B G|F3 z|
|F F G A|B2 A2|G F G A|c3 z|
|d2 c2|A2 F2|G2 A2|F4|]


I know I say this many times, but I absolutely love doing this project on state songs and I learned so much from it. I hope you are enjoying this journey too.