Washington -- The patriotic songs that have become staples of U.S. Independence Day celebrations reflect the nation’s history and the contributions of immigrants to the country’s diverse culture.
At its July 4th concerts, the Marine Corps Band includes “music that represents the full spectrum” of U.S. songwriting talent, said Master Gunnery Sergeant Mike Ressler of the Marine Corps Band Library. “Often when the band is appearing at the White House, we’re accompanied by a jazz combo that performs music that’s more contemporary. At the same time, there are some pieces we play, featuring fife and drums, that evoke the [U.S.] Colonial era.”
Outdoor evening concerts usually are followed by fireworks. For Americans, strains of John Philip Sousa’s “The Stars and Stripes Forever” or George M. Cohan’s “Yankee Doodle Dandy” evoke July 4 memories.
“The Star-Spangled Banner” (written in 1814 by lawyer/poet Francis Scott Key and declared the national anthem in 1931) is invariably played on Independence Day. The song’s rousing refrain recalls the early struggles of a nation. Less than two decades after the debut of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” the Reverend Samuel Francis Smith wrote the lyrics to “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee” (adapted from the British national anthem “God Save the Queen”), which became a patriotic staple.
In the late 19th century, classics of the Civil War era were added to the national repertoire, notably “Battle Cry of Freedom” and “Battle Hymn of the Republic.”
“America the Beautiful” appeared as a poem in 1895, written by Katharine Lee Bates, a professor at Wellesley College. In the early 1900s, it was set to music by Samuel A. Ward and achieved national popularity.
NATIONAL MUSIC WITH INTERNATIONAL ROOTS
According to John Edward Hasse, curator of American music at the Smithsonian Institution, the nation’s stock of patriotic music grew significantly during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Hasse told America.gov that Sousa (1854-1932), an American composer and son of a Bavarian mother and Portuguese father who immigrated to the United States, authored the most famous marches in the U.S. musical canon. Sousa’s marches include “The Stars and Stripes Forever” and “Semper Fidelis” which takes its title from the Latin motto of the U.S. Marine Corps (“always faithful”).
Hasse cited Cohan (1878-1942) as another songwriter who left a major imprint on the nation’s musical heritage. Cohan, of Irish descent, was the son of vaudeville performers who taught him to dance and sing. He authored a Broadway hit in 1904: the show Little Johnny Jones, which included his song “Yankee Doodle Boy” (better known as “Yankee Doodle Dandy”). Other Cohan hits include “You’re a Grand Old Flag,” “I Want to Hear a Yankee Doodle Tune,” and the popular World War I song “Over There.”
Hasse said Irving Berlin (1888-1989), an immigrant from what now is Belarus, expanded the nation’s musical repertoire with “God Bless America.” The song achieved “instant classic” status when sung by Kate Smith during a 1938 Armistice Day (commemorating the end of World War I) radio broadcast.
“God Bless America” is standard fare on July 4th, but it is not without its competitors. Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land” (1940) was “written as a response to ‘God Bless America,’ which Guthrie disliked,” said Hasse. Guthrie considered “God Bless America” too complacent, so he wrote a folk song with overtly political verses that are sometimes omitted in performances.
“The [musical] canon evolves slowly,” Hasse said. Big-band swing music of the 1940s, popularized by the Glenn Miller Band, is played at many Independence Day concerts. So too are Neil Diamond’s 1980 hit “Coming to America,” which celebrates immigration to the United States, and Lee Greenwood’s 1983 country-western hit “God Bless the USA.”
Ressler described the patriotic standards performed by Marine Corps musicians, naming several of the classics that Hasse cited. But composers like Leonard Bernstein and Aaron Copland introduced “big changes to the nation’s patriotic music,” he said. “We’ll perform symphonic dances from [Bernstein’s 1957 Broadway musical] ‘West Side Story,’ which has almost achieved the status of a folk opera.”
Ressler said the band also plays Copland, “the most important American classical composer of the 20th century.” Copland (1900-1990), a first-generation American Jew of Lithuanian origin, forged an American musical style that evokes the vastness of the Western frontier. The ballets Rodeo (1942) and Appalachian Spring (1944) are among Copland’s best-known works. Ressler praised both, noting that the “Hoe-Down” sequence from Rodeo has become iconic.
Russian composer Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture is a traditional July 4th feature, although the piece commemorates Russia’s victory over Napoleon’s army and has no connection to U.S. events. Music historians attribute its popularity to its strong melodic line and use of cannon fire, which adds a percussive charge that thrills audiences. When the Marine Corps Band performs the 1812 Overture, the musicians “use very large bass drums to simulate cannon fire, to very good effect,” said Ressler.
The Sousa marches are reliable crowd-pleasers. “There’s no one piece that captures the 4th of July spirit better than ‘Stars and Stripes Forever’ -- it’s very dramatic and exciting at the finale,” he said. “We almost always conclude our concerts with it, not only because it’s a great piece of music, but also because of the energy that we get back from the audience.”
More information about U.S. patriotic music is available on the U.S. Library of Congress Web site.
Follow these audio links to listen to Stars and Stripes Forever, You’re a Grand Old Flag and America, the Beautiful.
