In MKE Music Rewind we revisit notable Milwaukee music that was released before Milwaukee Record became a thing in April 2014. This week: “Our Milwaukee Bucks” by…someone.
Back in May 2021, just as the Milwaukee Bucks were preparing to enter the playoffs and, ultimately, become NBA Champions, a Milwaukee musician gifted the world a certified Bucks Banger. That Milwaukee musician was legendary sports-song tunesmith Eddy J. Lemberger, and that banger was “Got Bucks Lust (I Love My Milwaukee Bucks).” If you haven’t heard “Bucks Lust” in a while, prepare to have it stuck in your head for another year:
Lemberger’s jam wasn’t the first Bucks fan/theme song, of course. There was the disco-tastic “Green And Growing (The Bucks Don’t Stop Here)” in 1977. There was “Light It Up” in 2001. There was “Let It Fly” in 2019. And way back in 1968—the year the team was founded—there was “Our Milwaukee Bucks.” The details and authorship of this original Bucks anthem are unclear, but you better believe Lemberger recreated the peppy number in 2021. Hooray!
“This was the first Milwaukee Bucks fan song. It came out in 1968, the first year our Bucks were in existence,” Lemberger says in the video description. “I went to a couple of games that year and sat behind the bucket. They had a promotion called ‘Buck Night.’ One dollar seats. I don’t know who owns this song, who wrote it, or who first recorded it. I may have some elements wrong. This is how I remember it.”
So who wrote and/or originally performed “Our Milwaukee Bucks”? A commenter on Lemberger’s video suggests it was the Steve Swedish Orchestra. That would track: Swedish and his group were active in Milwaukee from at least the late 1930s until the bandleader’s death in 1988. (Here’s Swedish in 1975.) Plus, Swedish and his orchestra recorded a Milwaukee Braves song in 1957:
So was Swedish—described in his wife’s 2008 obituary as “one of Milwaukee’s most famous bandleaders and a music impresario”—the original performer of “Our Milwaukee Bucks”? Until we learn otherwise, sure, let’s just go with that. GO BUCKS, GO!
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