Spizzwinks(?
)
Welcome to Yale
the Yale
Founded in 1914, the Yale Spizzwinks(?) are America’s
oldest underclassman a cappella group. This concert
season, our ninety-sixth year, promises to be particular-
ly spectacular. Whether performing for luminaries such
as John Kerry and Magic Johnson, singing concerts in
far-flung regions of the world, or entertaining at Mory’s,
the Spizzwinks(?) wield their broad repertoire with care-
ful professionalism. Great experiences await those who
choose to ride with the ‘Winks. This year, the Spizz-
winks(?) will embark upon not one, but two international
tours. Whether emptying sand from our dress shoes on
the sun-drenched beaches of Southern California, sam-
pling the eclectic cuisine of South America, meditating in
the temples of Bangkok, or recording our twenty-ninth
studio album at home in New Haven, the ‘Winks are sure
to enjoy another marvelous year of performance and ca-
maraderie. Indeed, these are exciting times to be a ‘Wink.
Surveying the South African savannah, Summer Tour 2009.
Tap Night 2008.
Our History
The original
Spizzwinks(?)
of 1914,
posing for a
Daguerreotype
photograph in
the cloakroom
at Mory’s.
The long history of the Spizzwinks(?) has spurred nu-
merous debates among scholars, but the Spizzwinks(?)
themselves have long since agreed on a master narrative.
It begins, as many stories do, with a corn blight in the
Midwest in 1906. This disaster, which attracted the atten-
tion of countless presidential candidates eyeing the 1908
nomination, was impossible to explain. But one man had
an answer: his name was Frank Johnson, and he was the
postmaster of a small Iowa town.
Frank Johnson proclaimed, to all who would listen, that
the pestilence was the fault of an invisible insect named
the Spizzwink, which only he could see. This eccentric
claim would have remained a folk legend had not one boy
from that town grown up and attended Yale University.
There, in 1914, he joined a brand-new a cappella group
that had formed in response to the Whiffenpoofs, who,
while musically excellent, were rather boring, even by the
less demanding standard of pre-war New Haven.
This new group formed to combine musical excellence
with humor and a more light-hearted approach to singing.
But it needed a name, and one night the group members
met at Mory’s Temple Bar to pick one. After some think-
ing and drinking, with perhaps a bit more of the latter,
the student from Iowa spied the ghost of Frank John-
son across the table and cried, “Eureka—we’ll call the
group the Spizzwinks!” Later, the editor of the Yale Ban-
ner, unsure of the spelling of the group’s name, added a
question mark in parentheses after the name. The group
liked the look of it so much that we’ve kept it ever since,
outlasting both the Soviet Union and Richard Nixon to
remain, after ninety-six years, America’s oldest under-
classman a cappella group: “The Yale Spizzwinks(?)”.