"Chicken Fat" (also known as "The Youth Fitness Song") is a 1962 song written by Broadway composer Meredith Willson (The Music Man, The Unsinkable Molly Brown) and performed by actor/singer Robert Preston. It was commissioned as part of the President's Council on Physical Fitness.
History
"Chicken Fat" was the theme song for President John F. Kennedy's youth fitness program, and millions of 7-inch 33 RPM discs which were pressed for free by Capitol Custom were used in school gymnasiums across the United States throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Willson contacted Fitness Council administrator Dick Snider with an offer to write a song to be used to promote exercise for children. Willson's offer was accepted and he consulted with Physical Fitness Council director Ted Forbes to ensure that the song would be effective. The bouncy chorus ended with the words "Go, you chicken fat, go!"
The song was originally recorded on a soundstage in early 1962 at the same time as the Warner Bros. recordings for the film soundtrack of The Music Man. Recorded on the same three-track 35MM magnetic film as the soundtrack recordings, it featured Robert Preston's vocal isolated on one track, with the Bernie Green Orchestra isolated on the second track and a chorus of boys and girls isolated on the third track. However, the multi-track music stems have never been unearthed. As a result, with only the full-track quarter-inch 15 IPS monaural composite master being available from which Capitol Records mastered their discs in 1962, no stereo mix of the song is currently possible and it remains in mono on the CD re-issue.
Two versions of the song exist: a 2:12 minute, radio-friendly length, “Disc Jockey Version"; and a longer, 6:30 “School Version”, for use in educational institution gymnasiums. The latter included 11 floor exercises for schoolchildren designed by Bud Wilkinson, the head coach of the University of Oklahoma football team. Willson, Preston, and Forbes all worked on the project gratis, while Capitol Records, which produced and distributed three million copies of the 33 1/3 RPM record, paid for the backup musicians, studio time, and production and distribution. The song was widely used in schools in the 1960s and 1970s. The original Physical Fitness Council was promoted in 1964 through a series of public service TV commercials featuring baseball great Stan Musial.
In 2014, "Chicken Fat" was used in a TV commercial by Apple Inc. to promote its new iOS 8 health application. The commercial shows people swimming, running, and checking their weight while connected to iPhone apps and accessories to a recording of "Chicken Fat". It was reported to be a 2000 recording by Bernie Knee, a jingle writer and part-time cantor, which was released by Kimbo Educational Music, though he died in 1994. Separately, it was reported that it was a new recording but that Apple would not name the singer.