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Ohio State University's marching band, widely considered one of the best in the country, had a parody song in its songbook that mocked Holocaust victims, The Wall Street Journal reported. The song, to the tune of Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'," featured lyrics about Nazi soldiers “searching for people livin’ in their neighbor’s attic,” and a “small town Jew … who took the cattle train to you know where.” The songbook urges band members to keep the song secret. The songbook also features a song mocking the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, added after the institution joined the Big Ten, that featured lyrics suggesting Nebraska students are gay and have sex with animals.
Ohio State has been pushing to change a band culture that the university has criticized as creating a hostile environment for students from many groups -- but many band alumni have been pushing back against change. In a statement to the Journal, the university said that the songbook lyrics viewed by the newspaper were an example of the “shocking behavior” that the university “committed to eradicating from its marching band program.”
