ShareThisBy SCOTT CACCIOLA
Sunday, November 12, 2006
When Chris Vernon brought his guitar to work one afternoon in September, he hardly planned on becoming part of an Internet phenomenon. But the buzz surrounding his song, "Colonel Reb Is Crying," has grown with each forwarded e-mail and every Ole Miss football highlight broadcast on ESPN.
"The Internet makes the world a small place," said Vernon, a 28-year-old Memphis sports talk radio host.
Vernon merely wanted to convey Colonel Reb's feelings for his beloved Rebels, his long-standing suffering and growing optimism as he turns to the team's fiery second-year coach, Ed Orgeron, for words of encouragement _ inspiration, even _ in the wake of Ole Miss' recent struggles.
And so Orgeron answers Colonel Reb's plea in his unmistakable, deep-pitched, bayou drawl: "Yaw Yaw Yaw Yaw Yaaaw Yaaaw Yaaaw Yaaaw ... FOOT-baw!"
That chorus has, in recent weeks, become a slice of pop subculture fueled by message boards and word of mouth. Vernon, who wrote the song and then sang it on "The Chris Vernon Show," his weekday afternoon program on a Memphis AM station, actually left the studio figuring his satire had been, more or less, a flop.
"I got some immediate response, but not a lot. I left work thinking, 'Maybe that was a lot funnier to me than to everybody else.'"
Other people thought it was funny. As of last Wednesday evening, more than 135,000 visitors had viewed the "Colonel Reb Is Crying" video on YouTube.com. The song, which is also available on Vernon's blog at cvernon.com, has gone global _ or at least regional.
For example, Auburn defensive lineman Quentin Groves roamed near the Ole Miss sideline during a timeout last Saturday and actually yelped the chorus at Orgeron.
"I could hear him," said Ole Miss punter Rob Park, shaking his head in disbelief.
But perhaps most important, Vernon gave voice to Colonel Reb, Ole Miss' bold but fading mustachioed mascot, who has not been officially recognized by the university since 2003, when school officials barred him from attending games. The Rebels have struggled since.
"First he loses his job," Vernon said, "and now he has to deal with this?"
This is not high art, per se. Vernon basically is making fun of the way Orgeron talks. (As a point of reference, one of Vernon's previous underground hits was a ballad that detailed his desire to travel to California so he could beat up Dr. Phil.)
But he could sense from the start that "Colonel Reb Is Crying" was unique. Inspired by one well-worn tale that involves Orgeron tearing off his shirt to fire up his team, Vernon grabbed his guitar. His muse spoke to him. Channeling Orgeron's gravelly voice, Vernon crafted the "Yaw Yaw Yaw" chorus first.
"Then I just had to come up with some verses," he said.
Colonel Reb is crying in his confederate handkerchief,
Colonel Reb is crying, he needs some real relief.
He asks coach Orgeron, can you save us from this dread?
Coach O rips his shirt off, and this is what he says:
Yaw Yaw Yaw Yaw Yaaaw Yaaaw Yaaaw Yaaaw ... FOOT-baw!
Vernon took some creative liberties in the second chorus, substituting "Brent SHAY-fuh!" for "FOOT-baw!"
The song traveled the Web and eventually reached Craig Bates, an Internet marketing and video production coordinator who works at a Knoxville-based ad agency. He thought the song was hilarious. Within 45 minutes, he had pieced together a montage of Orgeron photographs.
"There's one where it looks like he's about to rip someone's head off," Bates said.
On Sept. 29, he matched up the photos with the song and posted the video on YouTube.
"After that, it was wildfire!" Vernon said. "It was bananas!"
Vernon realized things had gotten out of control when he heard ESPN's Rece Davis make thinly veiled references to the song, such as "Lawrence Lilly catches the touchdown pass from Brent SHAY-fuh!"
Davis said one of his researchers, who is originally from Memphis, e-mailed him the song last month. Every time he drops a "Brent SHAY-fuh!" reference on the air, his colleague Mark May has to stifle a laugh, he said.
"You know, we're all laughing now," Davis said, "but the way his team is progressing, I think coach Orgeron might have the last laugh."
Of the dozens of e-mails that have flooded his inbox, Vernon said he has gotten only one that was critical. The gist: What has Coach O ever done to you?
"I mean, if you're going to be like that, that's just blatantly having no sense of humor," Vernon said. "The song's not mean-spirited. I think I did it in a way that was meant to be lighthearted. This guy, he's got a wife and kids. You want it to be funny, but you don't want to go too far."
As for Orgeron, he said he learned of the song from his sons, who found it on the Internet.
"They were upstairs hooting and hollering," Orgeron said. "So I asked them, 'What are y'all doing? I gotta hear this.' I thought it was kind of funny. I've got no problem with that kind of stuff. It's all part of football."
