Wisconsin Symbols, Waltz: The Wisconsin Waltz

Adopted on August 31, 2001.

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Music from heaven throughout the years; the beautiful Wisconsin Waltz.

Favorite song of the pioneers; the beautiful Wisconsin Waltz.

Song of my heart on that last final day, when it is time to lay me away.

One thing I ask is to let them play the beautiful Wisconsin Waltz.

My sweetheart, my complete heart, it's for you when we dance together; the beautiful Wisconsin Waltz.

I remember that September, before love turned into an ember, we danced to the Wisconsin Waltz.

Summer ended, we intended that our lives then would both be blended, but somehow our planning got lost.

Memory now sings a dream song, a faded love theme song; the beautiful Wisconsin Waltz.



Origin of Waltz:

"Wisconsin Waltz" as the official state waltz at the urging of Rep. Marlin Schneider (D-Wisconsin Rapids).

Waupaca-born composer Ethwell "Eddy" Hanson befriended gangsters in Chicago, was a guest in most of England's royal palaces and toured the country in 1918, selling war bonds. In his music, though, Hanson never ventured far from home, and "The Wisconsin Waltz" is on track to become the official state waltz. State Rep. Marlin Schneider, D-Wisconsin Rapids, has added the proposal to name Hanson's waltz an official state symbol as an amendment to Assembly Bill 21, which also would make "Oh Wisconsin, Land of My Dreams" the official state ballad. Locally, Hanson is remembered as "dapper" and "colorful." "He'd play piano with his left hand and the organ with his right," said Arlin Barden, retired commandant of the Wisconsin Veterans Home at King, where Hanson died in 1986. "He was really something." Hanson was born in Waupaca in either 1893 or 1898. He moved to Neenah in 1910, finished high school, then worked his way through Lawrence University playing the organ in movie theaters. By 1918, when he enlisted in the Navy so he could play saxophone in John Philip Sousa's band, he'd published "Rattlesnake Rag," "Moon Maid," "Homecoming Song," and "When Evening Shades are Falling." Later, for Appleton band leader Lawrence Duchow, Hanson wrote "The Polish Piano Polka," the "Windy City Polka," and, in 1951, "The Wisconsin Waltz." After World War I, Hanson moved to Chicago, where he played the organ for a succession of radio stations, including WGN, WLS and WBBM.

 

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