Anchors Aweigh
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Service anthem of  United States Navy
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| Lyrics | John Hagan, 1997 |
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| Music | Charles A. Zimmermann, 1906 |
| Adopted | 1907 |
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"Anchors Aweigh" is the fight song of the United States Naval Academy and march of the United States Navy. It was composed in 1906 by Charles A. Zimmermann with lyrics by Alfred Hart Miles. When he composed "Anchors Aweigh," Zimmermann was a lieutenant, and had been bandmaster of the United States Naval Academy Band since 1887. Miles was Midshipman First Class at the Academy, in the class of 1907, and asked Zimmermann to assist him in composing a song for that class, to be used as a football march. Another Academy Midshipman, Royal Lovell (class of 1926) later wrote what would be adopted into the song as its third verse.
To "weigh anchor" is to bring it aboard a vessel in preparation for departure. The phrase "anchors aweigh" is a report that the anchors are clear of the sea bottom and, therefore, the ship is officially underway.
"Anchors aweigh" is often misspelled as "Anchor's away," leading to confusion of the terms and the misunderstanding that it means "to drop anchor." Another confusion is evident in the spellings encountered both with and without apostrophe. Here, it is a matter of distinguishing the singular anchor + contraction of "is" (that is, "anchor is aweigh") from the plural (anchors aweigh), meaning the anchors of all ships are raised. Although the original (now archaic) "aweigh" is verbal and transitive, the 'aweigh' used now is adjectival/adverbial in nature and meaning.
"Weigh" as a verb means to "bear" or "move", thus giving it several shades of meaning and derivation, including "weight" or heaviness. This lends itself to obvious plays on words, as with Flip Wilson's old routine about Christopher Columbus: "Columbus cried, 'Weigh anchor.' A few minutes later, a crewman reported, 'Two thousand, one hundred thirty six pounds.'"
The song was first played during the Army–Navy football game on December 1, 1906, at Franklin Field in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Navy won the game 10–0 before a crowd in excess of 30,000, their first win in the match up since 1900.
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