THE STARS and STRIPES FOREVER

The Stars and Stripes Forever is a patriotic march written by John Philip Sousa. It was first performed at Willow Grove Park, just outside Philadelphia, on May 14, 1897, and was immediately greeted with great enthusiasm. 

By a 1987 act of Congress, The Stars and Stripes Forever became the official National March of the United States of America. It is a giant, jubilant march, with stirring lyrics. (For fun, we can substitute the original lyrics for a duck song! See below.)

If you are older, you may not have heard it for a while. If you are younger, you may never have heard it. Either way, on July 4th, find The Stars and Stripes Forever and listen. You won’t be able to sit still, and you won’t be able to get it out of your head for some time to come!

JOHN PHILIP SOUSA

John Philip Sousa was a Marine, a musician, and a bandleader. On Christmas day in 1896, he was returning to the United States from a vacation in Italy. While standing on the deck of an ocean liner, he heard the march playing in his head!

He wrote in his autobiography, 'Marching Along,' that he suddenly began to sense the rhythmic beat of a band playing within his brain. The distinct melody of the march kept on playing in his head with the same themes echoing and re-echoing.

Amazingly, John Philip Sousa did not transfer a single note of that music to paper while on the steamer. When he reached shore, he set down the measures his brain-band had been playing for him and he never changed a note of it!

THE STARS and STRIPES FOREVER MARCH

The march is scored for an orchestra consisting of two flutes, a piccolo, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, cymbals, bass drum, snare drum, glockenspiel, and strings.

The song repeats distinct melodies in sections, called strains, using different instruments to repeat and lead. Performances vary according to the arrangements of individual band directors or orchestrators, especially regarding tempo and the number and sequence of strains employed, as well as the number and type of instruments used.

The march begins with a hearty introduction by the horns with great smashing beats on drums, followed by the melody. Woodwinds repeat, and later, the response of the piccolo. The trombones thunder in with a bold counter melody. Then, the entire band plays together -- and, by then, we're all marching!

THE STARS and STRIPES FOREVER  STRANGE FACT...

A strange fact about The Stars and Stripes Forever is that shows such as circuses in the early 20th century loved to fire up the crowd with march music, but they did not play The Stars and Stripes Forever march.

The Stars and Stripes Forever was called ‘the Disaster March,’ used as a secret signal and only played when a life-threatening disaster was imminent, particularly in show business, in the theater, and the circus. It was used as a subtle notification to allow emergency personnel to organize the exit of an audience with minimum chaos or panic during an impending disaster such as a fire.

WHERE YOU MIGHT HAVE HEARD THE STARS and STRIPES FOREVER BEFORE...

There have been many adaptations and renditions of The Stars and Stripes Forever. Here are just a few examples:       

• While it is the official national march of the United States, the Stars and Stripes Forever tune has also been adopted by soccer fans in the UK, sung as 'Here We Go,' once called a working-class march. The tune has been repurposed for many other, similarly repetitive, football chants.
• In the classic Marx Brothers 1933 film, Duck Soup, Harpo Marx plays Pinky, a spy infiltrating a house in the middle of the night. He attempts to open what he believes to be a safe. It turns out to be a large radio which loudly begins playing ‘The Stars and Stripes Forever’ when he turns the knob. Pinky spends the next several moments futilely (and loudly) trying to quell the noise before throwing the radio out a nearby window.
• In 1947, Vladimir Horowitz, Russian-American pianist introduced his transcription of ‘The Stars and Stripes Forever’ for solo piano to celebrate his becoming an American citizen. 

• A 1952 biographical film, 'Stars and Stripes Forever,' was an account of John Philip Sousa’s life and music.
• Popeye the Sailor cartoons frequently made use of 'The Stars and Stripes Forever' in the music score starting with the moment Popeye gets a spinach power boost at the climax of a fight between Popeye and the villain.
• 'The Stars and Stripes Forever' is usually played for the President of the United States after a speech at a public ceremony.
• In the 1970 animated TV special adaptation of 'Horton Hears a Who!' by Dr. Seuss, the melody of the tune was used for the song 'Be Kind To Your Small Person Friends.'
• On July 4, 2015, The Grateful Dead finished their 50th reunion concert with fireworks accompanied by a recording of ‘The Stars and Stripes Forever’ in front of 70,000 people in Soldier Field in Chicago.

SOUSA'S LYRICS to THE STARS and STRIPES FOREVER

Sousa’s lyrics to The Stars and Stripes Forever are not as familiar as the music itself. Below is a typical pairing of Sousa's lyrics with various sections of the march:

First Strain
Let martial note in triumph float
And liberty extend its mighty hand
A flag appears 'mid thunderous cheers,'
The banner of the Western land.
The emblem of the brave and true
Its folds protect no tyrant crew;
The red and white and starry blue
Is freedom's shield and hope.

Let eagle shriek from lofty peak
The never-ending watchword of our land;
Let summer breeze waft through the trees
The echo of the chorus grand.
Sing out for liberty and light,
Sing out for freedom and the right.
Sing out for Union and its might,
O patriotic sons.

Second Strain
Other nations may deem their flags the best
And cheer them with fervid elation
But the flag of the North and South and West
Is the flag of flags, the flag of Freedom's nation.

Trio
Hurrah for the flag of the free!
May it wave as our standard forever,
The gem of the land and the sea,
The banner of the right.
Let tyrants remember the day
When our fathers with mighty endeavor
Proclaimed as they marched to the fray
That by their might and by their right
It waves forever.

Grandioso
Hurrah for the flag of the free.
May it wave as our standard forever
The gem of the land and the sea,
The banner of the right.
Let tyrants remember the day
When our fathers with mighty endeavor
Proclaimed as they marched to the fray,
That by their might and by their right
It waves forever.

PARODY LYRICS to
THE STARS and STRIPES FOREVER

Although the exact origin of the parody lyrics is not clear, versions of it included the following:

• As early as the 1930s on college campuses.
• During the 1940s, sung for entertainment by soldiers at the USO, sometimes referred to as the ‘Duck Song.’
• 1954, Charles Grean and Joan Javits composed ‘Crazy Mixed Up Song,’ using 'The Stars and Stripes Forever' theme with the lyrics beginning ‘Be kind to your web-footed friends.’
• In the early 1960s, Mitch Miller’s show, 'Sing Along with Mitch,' reached a wider audience, and used the parody lyrics below, probably the best known lyrics to the tune, which were used to end every show:

                     Be kind to your web-footed friends,
                     For a duck may be somebody's mother.
                     Be kind to your friends in the swamp,
                     Where the weather is very, very damp,
                     Now, you may think that this is the end,
                     Well, it is!

• The last two lines were later used for the theme song of the 1985 television series 'The Berenstain Bears' with the final lyrics changed to:

                      You may think that this starts our show,
                      Well, it does!

• Later versions of ‘Be kind to your web-footed friends’ extended the lyrics of the second verse. One popular version goes like this:

                       Be kind to your web-footed (fine-feathered) friends
                       for that duck may be somebody's mother,
                       She lives in a nest in a swamp
                       Where the weather is always damp.

                       You may think that this is the end,
                       Well it is, but to prove we're all liars,
                       We're going to sing it again,
                       Only this time we'll sing a little higher.

                       And the song repeats itself ad infinitum, getting higher                             in tone each repeat until the singer is ready for the                                     finale:     

                      You may think that this is the end,
                      Well, it is!

                      (‘Well, you're right’ may be substituted for ‘Well, it is!’)

• Another version goes like this:

                     Be kind to your web-footed friends
                     For a duck may be somebody's mother,
                     Be kind to your friends in the camp,
                     Where the weather is always damp.

                     You may think that this is the end,
                     Well it's not, we are just teasing.
                     There's something that you need to know,
                     We're gonna sing it _______________, here we go.

                     The blank may be filled with appropriate adjectives like                             low’, ‘high’, ‘silly’, ‘fast’, etc., until ready for the finale,                               when the singer may end with ‘Well, it is!’ as did                                         Mitch Miller.

We hope you able to enjoy the many renditions of 'The Stars and Stripes Forever' this 4th of July or at any other time of the year!

---

Top of The Stars and Stripes Forever

Back to Articles

Back to Homepage

---