Lots of states have their own songs. There are the old sentimental standards everyone loves, like Georgia on My Mind. [1]

Georgia, Georgia
The whole day through
Just an old sweet song
Keeps Georgia on my mind

Or Sweet Home Alabama, possibly the best-known song about that state. [2]

Sweet home Alabama
Where the skies are blue
Sweet home Alabama
Lord, I'm coming home to you

This one’s a bit controversial. Some people think it supports former governor George Wallace’s segregationist policies, although band members dispute this. [3]

Then there’s Take Me Home, Country Roads. [4]

Almost heaven, West Virginia
Blue Ridge Mountains
Shenandoah River

Strangely, the places mentioned in the song aren’t really in West Virginia. The Blue Ridge Mountains run from Virginia to Georgia, and almost the entire length of the Shenandoah River is in Virginia.

Ohio seems to inspire angry songs. There’s Neil Young’s Ohio about the shootings at Kent State University in 1970. [5]

Tin soldiers and Nixon coming
We're finally on our own
This summer I hear the drumming
Four dead in Ohio

Also on this list is My City was Gone by the Pretenders. [6]

I went back to Ohio
But my pretty countryside
Had been paved down the middle
By a government that had no pride

There are songs about Alaska, Hawaii, Nebraska and even Utah. [7][8][9][10] Some states, like California, have hundreds of songs. Oklahoma is memorialized in an entire musical! [11]

Wisconsin seems to fall a little short in this category. The official state song is On, Wisconsin! which was adopted by the legislature in 1959. [12][13] The first version of the song was written in 1909 and became the Badger football team’s fight song, with lyrics that included phrases like “Plunge right through that line!” William Purdy and Carl Beck, who wrote the song, originally intended it for the University of Minnesota, but then changed their minds.

The 1959 official state version has different lyrics, written in 1913 by Joseph Hubbard and Charles Rosa, one a newspaper editor and the other a municipal judge. [12] The new lyrics place less emphasis on football.

On, Wisconsin! On, Wisconsin!
Grand old badger state!
We, thy loyal sons and daughters, Hail thee, good and great.
On, Wisconsin! On, Wisconsin!
Champion of the right, ‘Forward’, our motto — God will give thee might! [13]

Maybe it’s time for an update. Those thys and thees sound a bit dated, and the phrase “champion of the right” may have acquired a new meaning in the years since the song was written.

The song also has a controversial legal history, with various copyright transfers and purchases, and accusations that Beck fabricated his role in co-writing the song. [14][15]

What about other Wisconsin songs? The Wikipedia entry for this category lists only six: da Turdy Point Buck – a deer-hunting song; Milwaukee, Here I Come – a 1968 folk song; My Cousin in Milwaukee – by George and Ira Gershwin in 1932; On, Wisconsin!; What’s Made Milwaukee Famous (Has Made a Loser Out of Me) – a song about Schlitz Beer; and Yon Yonson – “My name is Yon Yonson. I live in Wisconsin.” [16]

Pretty meagre fare.

Tone Magazine (now unfortunately no longer in publication) lists a bunch of songs, but none of these seems to have the word Wisconsin in its title. One of these is Dead Fish on the Banks by Milwaukee cow-punk band The Goodnight Loving’s. [17]

Most songs “about Wisconsin” seem to only contain a brief reference to the state. Some examples from a long online search include: The Wreck of the Edmind Fitzgerald by Gordon Lightfood (mentions that the ship left Superior, Wisconsin, loaded with iron ore), Jungle Love by Steve Miller (because Steve Miller is from Milwaukee); Cadillac Ranch by Bruce Springsteen (mentions “drivin’ alone through the Wisconsin night”); and T-Pain’s Can’t Believe It (which contains the rhyme, “Put you in the mansion/Somewhere in Wisconsin”).

There are songs that refer to specific Wisconsin cities – usually, Milwaukee – but there seem to be only a few that use the state’s name in the title. There’s the melancholy Wisconsin by Madilyn Bailey (written after Bailey moved to LA); the subdued Minnesota, WI by Bon Iver (which doesn’t actually mention Wisconsin); and the somber Wisconsin also by Bon Iver (“That was Wisconsin, that was yesterday”). These songs aren’t bad, but they don’t have the energy needed to really pump up the crowd.

So what’s up? Does Wisconsin not inspire songwriters the same way other states do? If Frank Zappa can write a song called Montana why not one called Wisconsin? Why didn’t Rodgers and Hammerstein name their musical after Wisconsin and its rich agricultural heritage?

On, Wisconsin!
Where the soybeans grow beside the corn.
In the dairy state,
It sure smells great
When the cheese starts to ripen in the barn.

Is it because Wisconsin rhymes with almost nothing (as T-Pain obviously discovered) … unless you include Charles Bronson, Gloria Swanson or Yon Yonson? 

I await enlightenment.

Sources

[1] Georgia on My Mind, by Ray Charles, 1960

[2] Sweet Home Alabama, by Lynryd [pronounced “LEH-nerd”] Skynyrd, 1974. The song was written in response to Neil Young’s song Southern Man which condemns the South en masse.

[3] See Felix Contreras, Unfurling ‘Sweet Home Alabama,’ A Tapestry of Southern Discomfort, NPR, Dec. 17, 2018. https://www.npr.org/2018/12/17/676863591/sweet-home-alabama-lynyrd-skynyrd-southern-discomfort-american-anthem

[4] Take Me Home, Country Roads, by Bill Danoff, Taffy Nivert and John Denver, 1971

[5] Ohio, by Neil Young, 1971.

[6] My City was Gone, by Chrissie Hynde, 1982.

[7] North to Alaska, by Johnny Horton, 1956.

[8] Blue Hawaii, Leo Robin and Ralph Rainger, 1937.

[9] Nebraska, by Bruce Spingsteen, 1982.

[10] Utah … This is the Place, by Sam Francis and Gary Francis, 1996. Now Utah’s official state song.

[11] Oklahoma! By Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, 1943.

[12] Maurice McCollum, What is THE Wisconsin Song? Wisconsin Public Radio, Jan. 30, 2019. https://www.wpr.org/art/what-wisconsin-song

[13] Chapter 1.10(1) of Wisconsin State Statutes. https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/statutes/statutes/1/10?view=section

[14] UW-Madison Libraries, The Song and Controversies. https://www.library.wisc.edu/archives/exhibits/campus-history-projects/100-years-of-on-wisconsin/the-song-and-controversies/

[15] There’s a theory that the phrase On, Wisconsin! originated as a Civil War battle cry. Emily Hamer, Did ‘On Wisconsin’ originate as a Civil War battle cry. UW-Madison News, Nov. 21, 2017.

[16] Wikipedia, Category:Songs about Wisconsin. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Songs_about_Wisconsin

[17] Steven Spoerl, Wisconsin in Song: An Updated View. Tone Magazine, April 5, 2024. https://tonemadison.com/articles/wisconsin-in-song-an-updated-view/