There are two stories about the history of those words - a legendary one, and a true one. The legendary background was explained in a 2005 issue of St. Olaf Magazine (via MPR News):
The rouser [is] based upon the old St. Olaf Faculty Hymn, which legend has it was sung at the beginning of all faculty meetings... Hagbarth Hardangerson ’29, who knew many of the great men named in the Faculty Hymn (“They were my teachers”), claimed the faculty never sang anything at their meetings... “most of the faculty couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket, and they never tried singing again.”That hymn supposedly morphed into the modern version:
When you read the refrain(s), which apparently neither the faculty nor anyone else could commit to memory, you will immediately understand why the original words were replaced by the easier-to-remember, albeit somewhat ridiculous, nonsense phrase “um yah yah.”We teach at St. Olaf,
We don’t dance or chew snuff,
Our students are Halvor and Gudrun and Thor;
They study like furious,
Their minds are so curious;
We sure are a bunch of Norwegians galore.
Gulbrandson, Narveson, Huggenvik, Ellingson,
Amundson, Klaragard, Halvorson, Roe.
Fredrickson, Rasmussen, Tollefsrud, Peterson,
Skogerboe, Faillettaz, Jorgenson, Boe.
We teach at St. Olaf,
It’s built on a big bluff,
The wind blows so hard that it causes distress.
But colleagues are glorious
And students uproarious
There’s no place on earth that we’d rather profess.
Christensen, Sheveland, Gustafson, Maakestad,
Lokensgaard, Skurdalsvold, Wrigglesworth, Ross.
Rovelstad, Jacobson, Lutterman, Otterness,
Erickson, Gunderson, Iverson, Foss.
Thormodsgard, Bieberdorf, Overby, Gimmestad,
Kittelsby, Ytterboe, Hinderlie, Njus.
Ditmanson, Odegaard, Hilleboe, Anderson,
Anderson, Anderson, Anderson, Muus!
We come from St. Olaf,That's the legend. Here's the less humorous but more believable true story:
We sure are the real stuff.
Our team is the cream of the colleges great.
We fight fast and furious,
Our team is injurious.
Tonight Carleton College will sure meet its fate.
Um! Yah! Yah!, Um! Yah! Yah!
Um! Yah! Yah!, Um! Yah! Yah!
Um! Yah! Yah!, Um! Yah! Yah!
Um! Yah! Yah! Yah!
A hat tip to Mr. Jeff Sauve, Associate College Archivist at St. Olaf, for providing this information and the image of the original publication; he notes that the basketball Goat Trophy celebrated its centennial this winter too.In 1987, Hagbarth Bue, member of the class of 1911, was interviewed on how the fight song originated (incidentally, the audiocassette is available in the St. Olaf College Archives). Mr. Bue said the 1911 class octet was practicing a Norwegian folk song, "Jeg Har Ute Pulten," which was to be sung at half time of a basketball game. The song was taught to two audiences separated by a basketball court. Because of a shortage of time, they simply substituted Um! Yah! Yah! for the words of the chorus.
The first published account of Um! Yah! Yah! appears in the 1913-14-15 triannual Viking under the song title "Jeg Har Ute Pulten" (embed at right).
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