The song in its present form was composed in 1900 and is generally attributed to Allan M. Hirsh, Yale Class of 1901, who in a 1930 letter claimed to have written it in collaboration with his classmates F. M. Van Wicklen, Albert Marckwald, and James L. Boyce in the fall of 1900. Though the claim was disputed by Marckwald and others, the weight of the evidence supports Hirsh's claim. However, the song appears to be based on an earlier one, "La Hoola Boola", by Robert Allen "Bob" Cole and Billy Johnson, "extremely popular African American singer-songwriters of the time." When the first piano edition of "Yale Boola" appeared in 1901, it included a notice "Adapted by permission of Howley, Haviland & Dresser", and Hirsh himself said in his 1930 letter: "The song was not altogether original with us, but was undoubtedly adapted from some other song but we were unable to definitively designate this song, although later on we did discover that there had been published a song, which at that time was out of print, called 'La Hula Boola,' and the air was quite similar but the time was different." The song immediately caught on, soon being played by John Philip Sousa. It sold more sheet music in the first half of 1901 than any other song in the country, and became indelibly associated with Yale athletics.
's Band made an early recording of "Boola Boola" in 1910. As one of Yale's most traditional football songs, "Boola Boola" is frequently performed by the Yale Whiffenpoofs and the Yale Glee Club. The tune of "Boola Boola" is used in the University of Oklahoma's fight song, "Boomer Sooner."
An accordion rendition is featured in the 1954 filmPhffft, when Kim Novak's character leads patrons in a restaurant in singing the song while swishing pom poms. A brass-band arrangement of the "Boola Boola" tune accompanies the sequence in Peter Yates' 1969 filmJohn and Mary in which Mary imagines herself sitting on a bench wrapped in a blanket, watching John play tennis with James on a New York City court in the winter, both wearing Yale jerseys. Then John and James briefly sing the song in the shower while throwing wet towels onto Mary. "Boola boola" could be an Origins of the National Anthem of Indonesia, "Indonesia Raya".
