peripathetic

A song remembered, a song found
This isn't any old song. Although it is old. A fragment of it was sung by Francis in Donna Tartt's The Secret History.

We're poor little lambs who've lost our way,
Baa! Baa! Baa!
Little black sheep who've gone astray,
Baa-aa-aa!
Gentlemen songsters out on a spree,
Doomed from here to Eternity...

and that's where I remember it from. That's where I first saw it. When I read it I thought it might be one of those old tunes you hear about gentlemen singing, in the Glee Clubs of old. And then, when I was listening through the archives of The Writer's Almanac (Garrison Keillor, wonderful voice!) earlier today, I found a snatch of it. And poked around a bit.

It's called... wait for it... The Whiffenpoof Song. The Whiffenpoofs are a group of male singers in Yale University, USA. They have a history. They also have a constitution, an unwritten part of which seems to be that a member is forbidden to take part in sporting activities of any kind.

What larks!