{"id":1161,"date":"2024-05-12T16:25:29","date_gmt":"2024-05-12T20:25:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rihhof.com\/rireds.org\/?p=1161"},"modified":"2024-05-13T06:47:58","modified_gmt":"2024-05-13T10:47:58","slug":"the-rhode-island-reds-unofficial-theme-song","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rihhof.com\/rireds.org\/legends-and-lore\/the-rhode-island-reds-unofficial-theme-song\/","title":{"rendered":"The RI Reds (un)Official Theme Song"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Beer Barrel Polka was the Theme Song<\/em> of the Rhode Island Reds, played at every home game when the Reds hit the ice for each period of play.<\/p>\n

The tradition began sometime around World War II.<\/p>\n

The music was originally composed in 1927 by the Czech, Jaromir Vejvoda. At that time, it was played without lyrics, which were added later by Bill Glahe.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>The polka went to the world very soon. In 1938, Glahe sold one million copies of its German version Rosamunde <\/em>that reached number one on the Hit Parade. Shapiro Bernstein published the song under the name of Beer Barrel Polka<\/em> a year later. The song was recorded by the Andrews Sisters, Glenn Miller Orchestra, Bobby Vinton, Benny Goodman and Billie Holiday. The tune would become a signature song for Liberace.<\/p>\n

With its subject of beer and its energetic, happy beat, the Beer Barrel Polka<\/em> was a natural to accompany the Allies on their march toward Berlin at the end of World War II.<\/p>\n

Roll out the barrel, we’ll have a barrel of fun
\nRoll out the barrel, we’ve got the blues on the run
\nZing boom tararrel, sing out a song of good cheer
\nNow’s the time to roll the barrel, for the gang’s all here<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>The song that had accompanied the troops through Europe came home with them in 1945, becoming an unofficial victory song in the United States, and it was played everywhere – clubs, concerts and sporting events.<\/p>\n

At the Rhode Island Auditorium, the new organist, Miss Vivian Porter, recognized the need to excite the fans and get them rooting for the team early on, so she \u201cRolled out the Barrel.\u201d She began to perform the song to celebrate the entrance of the Reds onto the ice at the beginning of each and every period. The crowd loved it, and she continued to play it at every Reds hockey game at the Auditorium from the mid-1940s to the late 1960s. And we all had a barrel of fun.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Beer Barrel Polka was the Theme Song of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1164,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-legends-and-lore"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rihhof.com\/rireds.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rihhof.com\/rireds.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rihhof.com\/rireds.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rihhof.com\/rireds.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rihhof.com\/rireds.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1161"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/rihhof.com\/rireds.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1161\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1167,"href":"https:\/\/rihhof.com\/rireds.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1161\/revisions\/1167"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rihhof.com\/rireds.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rihhof.com\/rireds.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rihhof.com\/rireds.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rihhof.com\/rireds.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}