Gathered around a table in Pat Boone’s house recently, Lipscomb University President Randy Lowry and the Lipscomb-educated ’50s pop icon drafted a new version of the university’s alma mater.
“My wife and I went out to Los Angeles to Beverly Hills about six to eight weeks ago, and we actually sat around a table in Pat Boone’s house and looked at the old music and then started playing with new words for the new music,” Lowry said.
Lipscomb eliminated “David” from its title 10 or 15 years ago, and that was one of the major changes made to the song. In the lyrics “David Lipscomb” has been replaced with “Lipscomb University.”
In addition to that change, Lowry said there were two places in the lyrics that were not inclusive for this time period.
“[‘Brotherhood’] was a word that a church community would use and they would talk about all the churches ‘in the brotherhood,’ but it’s not particularly inclusive of women,” he said.
With the help of Boone an updated alma mater was crafted using alternatives words.
“An alma mater really tries to articulate some sense of relationship with this institution, and I think that one [the updated version] has a lot of really good stuff in it.
“My sense is we always want to be alert to those moments where we can be a little more relevant, a little bit more sensitive, a little bit more inclusive, and after singing the alma mater for 10 years it just dawned on me: this is one of them,” he said.
Keeping the original tune, Boone and Lowry gave the new lyrics an a cappella sing-through.
“This is also just a little bit of a way to bring him a little bit back into the Lipscomb community,” Lowry said. “It was just kind of fun to re-engage him.”
Boone was a graduate of Lipscomb Academy, where his music career began to blossom as a member of the chorus. He took a quick walk next door to attend college until one year later when his talents of singing, acting and writing took him to Hollywood.
Boone recently visit Lipscomb Academy’s Concert Chorus to hear a performance of “The Lord Bless You and Keep You.”
“A lot of his professional life started in that place,” Lowry said. “ It was a touching moment for him to come back.”
Boone will return to his musical roots to debut Lipscomb’s updated alma mater.
He will perform at the undergraduate commencement ceremony at 3 p.m. Saturday in Allen Arena.
“We weren’t really interested in saying, ‘Throw it out and let’s start again’; we were just interested in updating a little bit, and then just leveraging that into a moment where we can have some fun at graduation,” Lowry said.