CLUB SONG

You can download two different version of the Essendon Club Song:

• traditional club song, played at games (download - wave audio format - 232Kb)
• new club song, played at club functions (download - MP3 audio format - 2.07Mb)

BOMBERS CLUB SONG

See the Bombers fly up, up!
To win the premiership flag.
Our boys who play this grand old game,
Are always striving for glory and fame!
See the Bombers fly up, up,
The other teams they don't fear,
They all try their best,
But they can't get near,
As the Bombers fly up!

The origin of the club song

The origin of the lyrics of Essendon's club song has been unclear for some time. The music for the song is widely known as the tune from Sunnyside Up written in 1929. It gained new popularity when it was adopted as the theme music for the Channel 7 TV show of the same name and used while the show was broadcast between 1957 and 1966.

Melbourne man Kevin Andrews contacted the club last year explaining that he was the writer of the lyrics of our club song when he added his own words to the Sunnyside Up tune. Kevin explained that as an 11 year-old boy he was befriended by players Hugh Mitchell and later Jeff Gamble after meeting Mitchell at a kicking competition at Northcote footy club in 1954. Mitchell took the young boy under his wing and regularly took him into the clubrooms at Windy Hill introducing him to other players. Kevin became a passionate Bombers supporter and a Windy Hill regular. Such was Kevin's friendship with Jeff Gamble that he later boarded at Jeff's home between 1958 and 1960 and the three men, Kevin, Hugh and Jeff, became lifelong friends.

As Kevin recalls, in late 1959 while he was boarding with the Gamble family, he remembers Jeff singing the music to Sunnyside Up but substituting the first line of the song with the words 'See the Bombers fly up, up'. This struck an immediate chord with Kevin and he remembers asking Jeff's mother for a writing pad. An hour or so later Kevin says he'd written a whole new set of lyrics to the tune. Jeff then took the song to the club's hierarchy and it was met with immediate approval. Shortly thereafter the Bombers had a new club song.

What are your first memories of the Essendon club song?