Sound Off

In the military, especially during a long march or run, the Sergeant Rock will lead a song called a cadence call, military cadence, or jody song to keep his subordinates' spirits up as they train, march, or work around their base or encampment. The songs cover a variety of topics, including the civilian at home who's sleeping with your significant other (i.e. Jody), the amount of Badass your service or unit has compared to the other services or units, the hazards unique to your particular unit or service, your own vulgar and violent tendencies, et cetera.

Although many of the songs are call-and-response, not all of them are. However, they are always sung to the rhythm of the task at hand.

Examples of Sound Off include:
  • Ads for Frosted Flakes cereal over the past few years have adopted one of these as their theme. "We are tigers..." Taken from the Princeton U fight chant.


Anime & Manga


Film

  • Battleground (1949). A jody call used by the protagonists' glider infantry platoon is the theme music of the movie.
  • Full Metal Jacket, for that matter, has quite a few during the bootcamp scenes. (Each line is sung by Gunny Hartman, and repeated by the recruits)

"Up every mornin' to the rising sun
Gonna run all day 'till the runnin's done
Ho Chi Minh is a son of a bitch
Got the blue balls, crabs and the seven-year itch"
"I don't know but I've been told
Eskimo pussy is mighty cold
Looks good
Tastes good
Feels good
Real good!"
"I don't want no teenage queen
I just want my M-14!"
"This is my rifle, this is my gun,
This is for fighting, this is for fun!"

  • From Sgt. Bilko:

I can barely move my legs!
Do me a favor and kill me now!
Something, something rhymes with "legs"!
My life is over anyhow!

  • Troops jogging around the military base in Hot Shots are singing the theme from The Brady Bunch as a cadence...
  • Used in D2: The Mighty Ducks, with Gordon riding a go-kart while the Ducks rollerblade along with him.

I don't know but I been told
Team USA's gonna win the gold
Listen up and listen good
We're all headed for Hollywood

I don't know, but it's been said
I love scaring kids in bed!

I don't know, but I've been told
End of the world be mighty cold

  • The title of the movie She Wore a Yellow Ribbon comes from an old marching song (Civil War/Wild West era). Some versions are quite a bit racier than the movie's version.
  • In the film An Officer and a Gentleman, the Navy officer candidates, led by their own Drill Sergeant Nasty chant:

I don't know but it's been said
that Air Force wings are made of lead.
I don't know, but I've been told
that Navy wings are made of gold.

    • The film also features the Real Life military classic "Napalm Sticks to Kids". Network television showings generally use an alternate take.
  • Lampooned in the movie Stripes, when Bill Murray and Harold Ramis, after joining the Army, begin using "Do Wah Diddy Diddy" as a jody during their first march. Bizarrely, it works really well. Not only the right rhythm to it, it even has a call-and-response section....
  • In Renaissance Man, civilian instructor Bill Rago makes up a jody call about Hamlet. By the end of the film, Drill Sergeant Cass is using it for the new batch of recruits.

Hamlet's momma, she's the queen
Buys it in the final scene
Drinks a glass of funky wine
Now she's Satan's valentine

  • During one of the training scenes in Space Chimps, Titan tries to start off a round, but Ham is having none of it:

Titan: I am Titan, I am strong!
Ham: No one wants to sing along!

  • From Kindergarten Cop, during the "Arnold is learning to bond with the kindergarteners" montage and he's leading the kids around the playground in recess:

Readin', writin', arithematic
Too much homework makes me sick
When it's time to pass the test
Kindergarten is the best!

I don't know, but I've been told:
 Butz's butt is green with mold.
You say thank you, I say please.
Kevin sits down when he pees.

  • In Heartbreak Ridge Gunny Highway orders one of his men to give a cadence after witnessing the other platoon give a rather mundane one. The young man complies and belts out an incredibly rude one... right as they pass by a female Marine. Gunny's look is priceless.

Model A Ford with a tankfull of gas
 Hand full of pussy and a mouthful of ass.


Literature

"Now we sing this stupid song
Sing it as we run along
Why we sing this we don't know
We can't make the words rhyme prop'rly"
Sound off!
(One, two!)
Sound off!
(Many, lots!)
Sound off!
(Er... wot?)!

Cindy, Cindy, Cindy Lou
Love my rifle more than you
You were once my beauty queen
Now I love my M-16.

Wash the spears
While the sun climbs high
Wash the spears
While the sun falls low
Wash the spears
Who fears to die
Wash the spears
No one I know!

    • Mat's revived Band of the Red Hand has "Jak O' The Shadows", sung to the tune of the Garryowen

We'll drink the wine till the cup is dry,
And kiss the girls so they'll not cry,
And toss the dice until we fly,
To dance with Jak O'the Shadows...

  • The Dragonriders of Pern series uses songs as training/mnemonics, and some of them quite fit this mold.

Drummer, beat, and piper, blow,
Harper, strike, and solider, go,
Free the flame and sear the grasses,
Till the dawning red star passes.

  • * The first Red Dwarf book has Rimmer trying to start "We are tough and we are mean, Rimmer's Z Shift gets things clean!" Nobody wants to join in.


Live-Action TV

  • Band of Brothers: Easy Company of the 101st Airborne sings this one as they run up three miles up a steep hill with a stomach full of spaghetti:

"We pull upon the risers
We fall upon the grass
We never land upon our feet
We always hit our ass
So highdy highdy Christ almighty, who the hell are we?
Zim zam, Goddamn, we're Airborne Infantry!"

    • They also do several verses of the airborne version of Battle Hymn of the Republic (Blood Upon the Risers) "Gory, gory what a hell of a way to die! He ain't gonna jump no more!" later on.
  • In The Pacific, a company-wide version of "Happy Birthday" turns into "how fucked are you now?"
  • The theme music for the first and second seasons of The Unit was a remixed cadence call, "Fired Up, Feels Good." Somewhat snicker-worthy in that they used a Marine cadence call for a show about Army special ops. Oops. A different theme for the next two seasons.
  • The Australian Late Show released a comedy tape/CD that included,

I don't know but I've been told
Fitted sheets are hard to fold

Hey, Starbuck, whaddya hear?
Nothing but the rain,[1] sir
Then grab your gun and bring in the cat
Boom boom boom

  • Used in Stephen Colbert's Basic Training experience as part of the "Operation Iraqi Steven: Army of Me" week of shows recorded in Baghdad, Iraq.
  • There was a Rottentrolls spinoff/Christmas Special called Combat Sheep: Don't Flock (or something like that), which included a convention of people who make up training jodys, with many short gags of having one of them speaking solely in cadence calls. One example:

I must say that I'm in shock;
I've spilled Tango down my sock

  • In the Red Dwarf Season Four episode Meltdown, the waxdroids who Rimmer has appointed himself General of are led in a marching song by a robot Elvis Presley.

"All we do is a kill and slay
"Don't care we if we get blown away!"


Music

  • Modest Mouse's I Came A Rat

Well I don't know but I've been told\\You'll never die and you never grow old

  • The late Captain Jack, of Dance Dance Revolution fame, and his (well, their) eponymous song. Makes sense, since Frankie Gee (the lead singer) was a soldier in the US Army, and the military theme was pretty much his entire stage persona.

Ejo, Captain Jack
Bring me back to the railroad track
Gimme a [gun/bottle/woman] in my hand
I wanna be a [shootin'/drinkin'/fuckin'] man
Left, right, left
The military step
The Air Force rap
The Seventeen is the best
Gooooooooooooooooooooooooo left go right go pick up the step, go left go right go left...


Newspaper Comics


Radio

  • Radio station WCPT in Chicago, a progressive (liberal) radio station, used this cadence during commercial breaks several years ago:

I don't know but I've been told
Right-wing lies are getting old
So tune your dial to 'CPT
Progressive talk for you and me!


Stand-Up Comedy

  • In his 2002 Broadway stand-up show, Robin Williams lampooned the Swiss Army knife's perennial inclusion of a corkscrew, imagining a Swiss Drill Sergeant Nasty explaining to raw recruits how to open a bottle of wine under fire. "I don't know but I've been told, Chardonnay must be served cold..."


Tabletop Games

  • No lyrics are actually given, but the Imperial Guard, Space Marines, and Sisters of Battle in Warhammer 40,000 have a wide variety of battle hymns and chants they sing into battle. One popular choice is the Litany of Death.


Theater

  • Parodied in Seussical: The Musical with the soldiers chanting "Green Eggs and Ham".
  • In Spamalot, the musical version of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, a cadence is used to foreshadow a character's sexuality and combine a reprise of a previous song with another Flying Circus reference. (If you don't get the joke, watch the Lumberjack sketch.)

I don't know but it's been said
We're off to war, we're not yet dead
Become a knight and you'll go far
In suspenders and a bra

  • The Bible: The Complete Word of God (abridged) has one for Joshua and his soldiers:

Gather round it's time to go
Kick some ass in Jericho
Listen up, now here's the news
We're taking Israel for the Jews!

One, two! One, two!
We not only fought, but we won, too!
Left, right! Left, right!
There's none of the enemy left, right?


Video Games

"I don't know but I been told
Deidre's got a Network Node
Likes to press on the on-off switch

Dig that crazy Gaian witch
—Spartan! Barracks! March! (Yes sir!)
  • Jamjars from Banjo-Tooie uses these to explain newly learned moves to the main characters. If you talk to him again, he tries a plain English explanation instead.

Jump up high and then press Z,
Don't need fly pads or feathers red!

  • In Fallout 3, the Mister Gutsy variants of the Mister Handy droids will quote directly from the "If I should die in the combat zone" cadence when they die.
  • Parodied in The Sims 2 with the description of the Military Recruit career. "I don't know but I've been told, cleaning latrines gets mighty old!"


Webcomics

We are badass through and through!
Now it's time to take Naboo!
We are tougher than the Hutts!
We will kick these Gungans' butts!


Web Original

58. The following words and phrases may not be used in a cadence- Budding sexuality, necrophilia, I hate everyone in this formation and wish they were dead, sexual lubrication, black earth mother, all Marines are latent homosexuals, Tantric yoga, Gotterdammerung, Korean hooker, Eskimo Nell, we've all got jackboots now, slut puppy, or any references to squid.[2]


Western Animation

  • The Simpsons had one when Prinicipal Skinner rejoined the Army. Skinner disapproved of the version the recruits already knew, and decided to make it more educational.

"I don't know but I've been told
The Parthenon is mighty old"
(How old?)
"We don't know!"

    • The Simpsons also had a parody one in the episode where Bart and his friends went to war against Nelson:

"We are happy, we are merry
We've got a rhyming dictionary"

    • The Simpsons has another reference in the episode where the kids go to military school. "Company L? But they smell!" "Yes, we've all heard the song."
  • In a Taz-Mania short where the family goes hiking and it starts to rain, somebody calls for a cadence and Taz chants:

Taz hate water, Taz hate water
Taz hate water, Taz hate water

  • Referenced in the Futurama episode "War Is The H-Word"—the officer's club has a sign outside reading "We don't know but we've been told our beer on tap is mighty cold."
  • "Colonel Hathi's March" from Disney's The Jungle Book. It's sung by the Elephant Patrol whenever they make their entrance about twice in the film (The first time is when Mowgli and Bagheera accidentally run into them while attempting to get the former back to the "Man-village", and the second is when Bagheera asks them to help him and Baloo find Mowgli before Shere Khan does).

Hup, two, three, four
Keep it up, two, three, four
Hup, two, three, four
Keep it up, two, three four
Company, sound off!
Oh, the aim of our patrol,
Is a question rather droll
For to march and drill
Over field and hill (trumpets)
Is a military goal!
Is a military goal!
Hup, two, three, four
Dress it up, two, three, four
By the ranks or single file,
Over every jungle mile
Oh, we stamp and crush
Through the underbrush (trumpets)
In a military style!
In a military style!

    • There's also the reprise:

Oh, we march from here to there
And it doesn't matter where
Well, you can hear us push
Through the deepest bush
Hup, two, three, four!
With a military air!
With a military air! (trumpets)
We're a crackerjack brigade
In a pachyderm parade
But we'd rather stroll
To a waterhole
Hup, two, three, four!
For a furlough in the shade!
For a furlough in the shade!

West Side Story, Anything Goes
Two of our favorite Broadway shows
Miss Saigon and Cabaret
Overrated I should say.

Recruits smell and that's no lie
Hate your guts, gonna make you cry
Call me smart, call me inspired
You're gonna march 'til I get tired.

    • In the same episode

Drill Sgt: I don't know but I've been told
Army life is mighty bold
Every night before retreat
Yakko: We order out for luncheon meat.

  • In The Oblongs, the Debbies have such a song when earning money for a Girl Scouts (or "Little Amazons") competition. The lyrics contain advice for upper-class debutantes.

I don't know but I've been told
Marry a man who's rich and old
I don't know but it's been said
Don't sign a prenup when you wed.

I don't know but I've been told
Gigglepie accessories are seperately sold.

I don't know but I've been told
Hector's feet have stinky mold.


Truth In Television

  • Truth in Television. Songs like this are very much a part of life in the armed forces, especially during basic training since they allow a person to focus on something other then the monotonous/unpleasant job at hand. A simple Google search for "Jody Calls" will yield many examples of these songs. Unfortunately, the traditional whimsical tone of Jody Calls isn't immune to abuse, and on occasion, soldiers have voiced discomfort about Jody Calls they've felt are too racist or homophobic. This trend seems a minor issue at best these days, and most calls (like the ones listed here) certainly aren't meant to be taken as the literal meaning of their words.
  1. ↑ "rain" is a reference to the sound of debris hitting the hull of a Viper as the pilot flies through a cloud of what used to be their target.
  2. ↑ (Perhaps because it's a nickname for sailors, often used in a derogatory manner.)
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