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May 26, 1997 - Bill Cooper
56:08
Salute to American Patriotic Music
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Be the power of the time.
Night's power couldn't hurt you.
The power of water, sun will make you mine.
Night's power won't be power.
And they really are our only suspects that we need to bedrid.
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The heads are up, the tits are out, the arms are swinging in ten count.
Count off, 1-2.
Count off, 3-4.
Countdown, one, two, countdown, three, four, countdown, one, two, three, four, one, two, three more.
I had a good home but I left.
You're right.
You had a good home but you left.
You're right.
Jody was there when I left.
You're right.
And Jody was there when you left.
You're right.
Down low, one, two, down low, three, four, ten, count, one, two, three, four, one.
Ladies and gentlemen, tonight's program is a salute to the patriotic music of America.
Ladies and gentlemen, tonight's program is a salute to the patriotic music of America.
That brief selection you just heard is from a very rare album.
It was released in the 1950s by Child's Craft Encyclopedia, and it's called Patriotic Songs
and Marches for Children.
I'm going to go ahead and close the webinar.
I recently encountered a public school where the children no longer recite the Pledge of Allegiance at all.
Twice a week, the principal reads the Pledge of Allegiance over the intercom into the classrooms, but the children are not encouraged to Stand by the side of their desks, place their hand over their heart, and pledge the flag.
This simply is not done.
And I thought it would be appropriate, given the state of the nation today, to collect some of this wonderful patriotic American music and some of the stories about it in an episode of The Hour of the Time, if for no other reason than to make it available to our children later on, so they can remember these things and appreciate our great musical heritage, which celebrates our freedom.
I'd like to open this evening's program with a rousing rendition of Yankee Doodle.
The irony of Yankee Doodle, the first great American popular song, and still a popular favorite, is that it may have been conceived as a mockery of the American colonial soldiers.
One of the most common legends about the tune attributes its authorship to a surgeon attached to the British Army at Albany during the French and Indian Wars, who was so bemused by the ragamuffin appearance of the colonial troops attached to his regiment that he composed this mocking little ditty sometime in the 1750s.
It soon became a popular British taunt, and even the colonials took to singing it, not realizing that the joke was on them.
Supposedly, when Colonel Hugh Percy's troops marched out of Boston in April, 1775, On their way to Lexington and Concord, they kept step to the strains of Yankee Doodle.
But the Colonials had the last laugh.
As the British beat a hasty retreat, the victorious Americans followed, singing a gleeful rendition of the tune.
This arrangement is performed by the Boston Pops Orchestra.
SAME.
I'm going to be a little bit more dramatic.
I'm going to be a little bit more dramatic.
The close ties between Great Britain and the United States have long been strengthened
by one unassailable link.
God Save the Queen and America share the same tune.
Though its melodic origins are obscure, by 1745 the British version had already become England's national anthem.
Then it was God Save Great George, Our King.
By the time of the Revolution, The columnists were making up all sorts of patriotic variations.
God Save George Washington, Our Thirteen States, America.
The words Americans sing today were written in 1831 by Samuel Francis Smith, a Boston
minister for a Children's Fourth of July celebration.
♪♪♪ ♪♪♪
So be I, dear.
And when my father died, that long-lost dear tonight, from every mountainside and stream of fear,
my native country, the mother told me, I may die now.
I know my God can will, my roots and family, my heart will forever tell my country.
That you may dwell on me, and live the course of peace between us all.
Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
Shed not a cloud from thee, and all that break away, shed not a cloud from thee, and all that break away, shed
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight, o'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly
streaming?
And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air, gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
Few composers or conductors have delved as deeply into the American idiom as Morton Gould.
His brief symphonic work, American Salute, which he wrote in the early 1940s, is a brilliantly orchestrated version of the Civil War song, When Johnny Comes Marching Home.
One of the finest from our legacy of American popular airs.
The tune is unusual in its minor quality, which gives a bittersweet tang to the martial phrases.
Gould has accented the bittersweet by making it brilliant and accented the sardonic by making it snappy.
The American salute, a cross between a concert overture and a symphonic march,
is in the form of a theme and variations with the theme always recognizable and the mood always stirring.
The American salute, a cross between a concert overture and a symphonic march,
the the
is in the form of a theme and variations with the theme always striking and the mood always stirring.
The American salute, a cross between a concert overture and a symphonic march,
is in the form of a theme and variations with the theme always striking and the mood always stirring.
The American salute, a cross between a concert overture and a symphonic march,
is in the form of a theme and variations with the theme always striking and the mood always stirring.
the A team of mandatory detainees were set on trial in een
identifying them as the the
the In my house you you.
♪♪ ♪♪
♪♪ Most modern-day listeners probably know American Patrol
through the swing version by Glenn Miller and his orchestra that was first popularized in 1942.
But the piece had been around for more than 50 years before the trombonist adapted it.
Written for piano by Frank W. Meacham in 1885, it was soon orchestrated and became a favorite at concerts of the military bands so common around the turn of the century.
One reason could well have been Meacham's inclusion of several familiar and beloved American themes, including Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean, Dixie, and Yankee Doodle in the fabric of the piece.
After Miller's instrumental success with the tune, lyricist Edgar Leslie, who also wrote the words for For Me and My Gal, Among My Souvenirs, and many other songs, added the words that turned it into the World War II work entitled We must be vigilant.
This is American Patrol.
ah so
so so
the the
But he cut it from the score because he didn't think it was appropriate for the scene in which it was to be sung.
It lay neglected in his songwriter's trunk for 20 years until Kate Smith, planning a radio program for Armistice Day, Asked him to write a new patriotic song for her Berlin tried but was unhappy with all of his efforts Then he remembered the song he had written in 1918 Kate sang it on the radio for the first time on November the 10th 1938 and it met with overwhelming enthusiasm The following year Berlin assigned all of the royalties to the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts of America proceeds they continue to receive today his reason
He didn't want to capitalize on this expression of gratitude that he, as an immigrant, felt for the United States.
This is God Bless America sung by Kate Smith.
God Bless America, Land that I love, Stand beside her, and guide her.
Through the night, where the light won't go out.
From the mountains, to the prairies, to the oceans, white and gold.
Oh, Mary, my home sweet home.
God bless our Mary, God bless our Mary, glad that I was.
And be kind to her and guide her till the night is light for the dark.
From the mountains to the prairies to the ocean white with foam,
God bless our Mary, God bless our Mary, my home sweet home.
From the mountains to the prairies to the ocean white with foam,
God bless our Mary, God bless our Mary, my home sweet home.
as the Austrian composer Johann Strauss, Jr.
is called the Waltz King, so, and for equal reason, is America's own John Philip Sousa known as the March King.
And if any one march offers explanation for that title, it must surely be his masterpiece, The Stars and Stripes Forever.
Sousa composed it while returning by ship from Europe, swept up in a surge of patriotic nostalgia And guided, he said, by divine inspiration.
The three themes of the final trio were meant to typify the three sections of the United States.
The broad melody, or main theme, represents the North, the famous piccolo obbligato is the South, and the bold countermelody of the trombones recalls the West.
Sousa pens the piece on Christmas Day, 1896, presumably in his hotel suite in New York, after the boat had docked.
the the
was actually composed for a football game, although a naval one at that, and for 20 years was associated only with football.
The game was the 1906 Army-Navy encounter, and the composer was Charles A. Zimmerman, the musical director of the Naval Academy.
The lyricist was Alfred H. Miles, a member of the Academy's class of 1907.
In 1926, the year the song was officially adopted by the Navy, Another midshipman, Royal Lovell, wrote additional words for it.
This is Anchors Aweigh for the U.S.
Navy.
Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave, O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air, Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
We're well to go.
Enjoy this fair and graceful way to take it.
♪ After all their joys we share a drink of faith in Jesus ♪
♪ Through hard and hard times for us ♪ ♪ Where'er he walks we know him ♪
♪ Come and weep in one for him ♪ ♪ As we do our part to adore him ♪
♪ We will sing his praise to him in our heart and say ♪ ♪ We know this is true and we're grateful to him ♪
♪ He can make the earth repeat ♪ ♪ Like a battle-hardened war ♪
♪ His hands have made the course of nations ♪ ♪ Of his sons and his sons ♪
♪ To the conqu'ring king and has the way of way ♪ ♪ With us to victory and victory to the day ♪
♪♪ ♪♪
For a number of years, John Philip Sousa was widely thought to have composed
the song, As the Casons Go Rolling Along, a tribute to the artillerymen who hit the dusty trail
as the Casons Go Rolling Along.
The attribution was due to the publication in 1918 of the U.S.
Field Artillery March listing the March King as composer.
Actually, Sousa's version was only an arrangement of a march that had been composed eleven years earlier by Edmund L. Gruber, a career Army officer, for a reunion in the Philippine Islands of two long-separated units of the 5th Field Artillery Regiment.
A post-World War II adaptation turned Gruber's tune into The Army Goes Rolling Along,
which was subsequently designated the official song of the United States Army.
♪♪♪ And for it was a dream that you and I could never, ever
have had.
And I'll never forget the day that we first met, And I'll never forget the way that you and I could never,
ever have had.
And I'll never forget the day that we first met, And I'll never forget the way that you and I could never,
ever have had.
Possibly the most surprising revelation in all March literature
is that Jacques Offenbach, who first put the champagne bubbles into Parisian comic opera,
was responsible for the music of The Marines' Hymn.
Of course, Offenbach didn't call it that when he wrote it for an operetta entitled Jean-Yves de Brabant.
Apparently, around 1918, an operetta-loving leatherneck Put the tune and its now-familiar words saluting the United States Marines together.
The two references in the opening lines are to Marine victories.
The Halls of Montezuma celebrates the Mexican War of 1846 to 1848, and the shores of Tripoli
refers to the four-year military action against North African Barbary pirates that ended in
1805.
The Halls of Montezuma, shores of Tripoli, the island of the great land, in the air of
the Pacific, is a place where the people of the United States of America gather to celebrate.
Probably the most recent of the classic United States military songs is one that was known
to every child growing up in America during World War II as, Off we go into the wild blue yonder.
It was written in 1939 by Robert M. Crawford, a member of the music faculty at Princeton, for a contest sponsored by Liberty Magazine to find a song for the newly formed Army Air Corps, and was known at that time as the Army Air Corps Song.
In accordance with the changes the years have brought, the song and the Corps are now known as the U.S.
Air Force.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen.
Amen.
Amen.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen.
Amen.
So, in 1893, she attended the Columbian Exposition in Chicago, and then traveled on to Colorado Springs.
One day she ventured to the top of nearby Pikes Peak.
She was overcome by the view from the summit, and that night wrote the first draft of a poem America the Beautiful.
It was published two years later in a magazine called The Congregationalist.
In 1913 her poem was set to music to a melody written in the 1880s by one Samuel A. Ward of Newark, New Jersey for the hymn Oh Mother Dear Jerusalem.
So stirring and popular was the resulting song that it was serious competition for the Star Spangled Banner When a national anthem was finally selected in 1931.
This is America the Beautiful.
O beautiful for spacious skies America!
of grace.
For her the mountain majesties above the crowned plain.
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee, and crown thy good with brotherhood
♪ And crown thy good with brotherhood ♪ ♪ From sea to shining sea ♪
from sea to shining sea.
you ♪ God shed his grace on thee ♪
♪ To beautiful for evermore be ♪ ♪ To steady fashion and splendor ♪
♪ For evermore be ♪ ♪ God shed his grace on thee ♪
you America!
How can I ever be found?
America, America, God bless our free land.
God keep my soul in self-control, my liberty in law.
.
you Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave, o'er the
land of the free and the home of the brave?
The home of the brave? America! America!
Give us thy holy light, with all thy heavenly light, and every day be bright.
America! America!
The beautiful for ever free, the city of the living, thy power and mercy, the strength of the unending.
America! America! God save thee, great America!
And crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea.
On the morning of September 13, 1814, during the War of 1812, Francis Scott Key boarded a British warship in Chesapeake Bay under a flag of truce.
His mission was to secure the release of a civilian taken prisoner during the British evacuation of Washington, D.C.
But once aboard, he was unable to leave because the fleet had begun its attack on Fort McHenry.
When the smoke had cleared the following morning, Key looked at the fort to discover that it had not surrendered He began scribbling a poem and completed it by the time he got to shore.
Sung to an English drinking song to Anna Creon in heaven, his poem became popular immediately.
Although the Star Spangled Banner didn't become our national anthem until more than a century later in 1931.
Your homework assignment is to find a book of English literature and locate the third stanza
of the Star Spangled Banner written by Francis Scott Key.
For we only sing three stanzas of his poem in our national anthem, and he wrote four.
This is our national anthem, the Star Spangled Banner.
["Star Spangled Banner"]
This was my child's first show.
Oh, where did that fly?
And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air, Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave In the air? Gave proof through the night that our flag was
still there.
Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave In the air? Gave proof through the night that our flag was
still there.
On the story we sing, through the years of the years, Where the bombs, the bombs, the bombs, the bombs, the bombs,
The bombs bursting in air, gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave In the air? Gave proof through the night that our flag was
still there.
On the story we sing, through the years of the years, Where the bombs, the bombs, the bombs, the bombs, the bombs,
the bombs, The bombs bursting in air, gave proof through the night
that our flag was still there.
Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave In the air? Gave proof through the night that our flag was
the brave?
still there.
Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave In the air? Gave proof through the night that our flag was
I'm afraid not.
I'm afraid not.
still there.
There's a girl in my heart who told me it's right
I'm thinking about her It's coming to life
I'm so thankful for her life I'm so thankful for her life
I'm so thankful for her life I'm so thankful for her life
I'm so thankful for her life Julia Ward Howe wrote the words for this stirring tune during the Civil War in the process of creating one of the most enduring of patriotic songs.
She had heard the melody sung by Union soldiers in Washington, D.C., one day in 1861.
The tune was drawn from an old Methodist hymn, possibly written by one John William Steffi,
and originally titled, Say, Brothers, Will You Meet Us?
The soldiers were singing words called John Brown's Body, probably thinking the song referred
to the militant anti-slavery leader who staged the famous raid at Harpers Ferry, West Virginia.
The John Brown referred to was actually an Army sergeant stationed at a fort in Massachusetts.
The Atlantic Monthly published Mrs. Howe's lyric, paying her five dollars, and history took care of the rest.
We will join the Battle Hymn of the Republic in progress, taking us up to the top of the hour.
And may God bless each and every one of you, and God bless our Republic.
Amen.
When Christ was born across the sea, with the glory in His bosom, that was sweet to all who were near.
As He died and raised them holy, let us strive to make them free, while God is watching us.
My body is such a cross.
Oh, my heart is so full of pain.
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