Students upset over 5th Symphony
Students in the junior section protest the playing of their class song during the Spirit Assembly on Sept. 7. The song, Beethoven’s “Symphony No. 5” was selected by the juniors in an election, but StuGo played a modern remix of the classic.
The class songs, which play at every assembly as a school spirit activity, have long been a cause of argument for students.
Almost every year, there are complaints about the song choices, but this year, for the first time, StuGo allowed Perry students to vote for which tunes would represent them at school events.
The winning song for the juniors, with only about 30 votes, was Beethoven’s 5th Symphony. Since the classical piece was appropriate and had the majority of the ballots, it was chosen as the class song. StuGo did decide, however, to update the 17th century piece to a dubstep-techno version that students could dance to.
The juniors were not amused.
Those who didn’t vote for the symphony complained that StuGo should have seen it as a joke, and picked something else.
“It’s not a good song, and it should be changed. We need to vote for a new one. It was just a joke.” complained junior Cole Warner
Those who did vote for it complained that the new, more modern song was ruining a classic. The uproar became so intense that some students went to Twitter, circulating petitions to change the song and complaining about those who chose the song.
“I was shocked,” student body vice-president Lester Nnagbo said. “It just seemed like from the votes that we did during the week… the majority of the class was really excited for it, so I thought when we chose the remix that people would be even happier with that, which was not the case.”
Student body president Lindsay Heffron agreed.
“In my opinion,” she said, “we gave the juniors what they wanted and what they asked for. The junior class voted for ‘Beethoven’s 5th Symphony,’ and those people who were disappointed with their class song choice should have voted and placed their opinion on the ballot.”
Though the juniors have made it clear that they are unhappy with the song choices, the two student body leaders believe that the assemblies were not affected by the negative response. “There was a small one minute part of our 45-minute assembly that didn’t go so well, but in my view, the assembly was still a success.” Heffron said, then added, “The transitions went really smoothly, the performances went really well… but [in the future] that one minute still needs to be perfected.”
Peyton Flake is a sophomore at Perry High School. She covers AVID and book reviews. She loves to watch movies, act, and write. She is a member of Perry...
