Gearing Up For The 4th With America’s March King

Last updated on: July 2, 2015 at 4:00 pm by Joseph Susanka

Gearing Up For The 4th With America’s March King 2015-07-02T16:00:56-06:00 Joseph Susanka

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There are few names as inextricably linked with the Fourth of July as that of John Philip Sousa. Even those for whom the name means nothing will almost certainly recognize his “Stars and Stripes Forever” after only a few bars. That piece will be playing on a loop from now ’til Sunday morning. (It’s the National March, you’ll recall, so the ubiquity should not surprise anyone.)

As I headed into town earlier today (to pick the boys up from Shakespeare), I was pleased to hear a nice piece on NPR’s “Here & Now” featuring long-time Sousa expert, advocate, and Sousaphile Kieth Brion (and also featuring a nice selection of his marches in addition to the aforementioned “SaSF”).

John Philip Sousa’s “The Stars and Stripes Forever” is an intrinsic part of many Fourth of July celebrations. An act of Congress named it the official United States National March.

But as Keith Brion, longtime Sousa lover and founder of the New Sousa Band told Here & Now’s Robin Young, Sousa “was patriotic to the core” and many of his other works would also fit well into a fourth of July concert.

And because I’m a serial contrarian, here’s something from Sousa that’s not particularly “patriotic to the core.”

…OK, so “We Beg Your Kind Considertaion” from “El Capitan” isn’t really patriotic. At all. But it’s funny, and fun (and very Gilbert and Sullivan-y). And The Fourth’s surely got a bit of room for those things, as well, right?

Attribution(s): “John Philip Sousa” by Elmer Chickering is available from the United States Library of Congress‘s Prints and Photographs division under the digital ID cph.3a01939 and is licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

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