“Rocky Top” is one of the state songs of Tennessee. Most native born Tennesseans can sing the song by heart. I think I was indoctrinated with the Rocky Top verses in 5th grade when I dressed up as James K. Polk (complete with gray hairsprayed hair), for a Tennessee history presentation. Each member of our class chose a famous Tennessean to dress up as. We sang “Rocky Top” at the end of our presentation. We also danced to “The Tennessee Waltz.”
Rocky Top is also the University of Tennessee fight songs. Whenever anyone needs encouragement at a UT game, they look to the Pride of the Southland to play it for them.
Yet I recently found out that UT does not own the rights to the song. Some lady owns the rights. She gets paid each time anyone plays it. Hence the UT band has to keep up with the number of times they played it. This past football game against Alabama (the one with 5 overtimes), UT’s band played RT 78 times. A trombone player kept count of it.
Supposedly the lady has put UT in her will, so that UT will eventually gain the rights to the song once she passes away. This is kinda like how Michael Jackson owns the rights to the Beatles songs.
Personally I think it is a good money making exercise. She does nothing but sit around and collect income from UT sporting events.