It just occurred to me…when Monty Python chose Sousa’s “Liberty Bell March” as their theme song – was this incredibly obscure to their British viewers? Or is Sousa relatively well-known across the pond?
Here in the US, every high school student who picked up a band instrument probably learned a Sousa march – but I’m wondering if his fame is uniquely American.
Yes, it’s comparitively obscure. Along the lines of “Sousa…y’know, the Monty Python tune…”
There’s no tradition that compares to American school bands, which perhaps helps explain the difference. (There’s brass bands, but that’s very different indeed…).
He’s reasonably well-known here, yes. We don’t have that whole marching band in High School thing that you seem to have, so perhaps that sort of music generally isn’t as familiar to most people, but I’d imagine that many of us would recognise a few of his tunes (other than Liberty Bell), even if we couldn’t name them.
I couldn’t guess how many would listen to it out of choice, however. The landlord of a pub I used to frequent would play a CD of Sousa marches at chucking-out time to encourage people to leave quickly.
Not too many here would listen out of choice, either. Although I enjoy marching bands, myself, and Sousa in particular, I doubt if I’d purchase an entire CD of it, though.
One year on the Fourth of July I decided to listen to an entire CD of Sousa marches, just to see if I could.
Turns out I couldn’t.
Mind you, has anyone ever listened to all the Pomp and Circumstance marches straight through, either?
I’m sure somewhere there’s a site somewhere which has the reason why Pythoners chose “Liberty Bell” but I haven’t a clue how to find without wading through a bunch of muck.
Yup. Played them, too. Would love to sing “Land of Hope and Glory”, but ya kinda need a full choir to get the full effect, so I settle for soloing on the “reindeer” verse instead.
I’m having trouble finding a cite, but, according to what I’ve read, there were two reasons behind this:
It was in the public domain, and, therefore, could be used without paying royalties, and
because it didn’t sound like the music for a comedy program.
Mind you, a great many Americans probably couldn’t name them either. I doubt I could, and I even played several of them during my band days. Maybe it’s just me, but there’s a certain “sameness” to Sousa’s marches that make them a bit hard to remember.
Yeah, a kind of “Sousa-rainty” (sorry!). It seems to help if you can put words to them: I know I’ve heard loads of his music (thanks to the afore-mentioned landlord) but after racking my brains, the only ones I could actually bring to mind were “Be Kind to Your Web-footed Friends” (Stars and Stripes Forever), and “Have no fear, the man of bronze is here” which turns out to be The Thunderer.
Incidentally, I’ve just found that he wrote a piece called “The Transit of Venus.” Fancy that.
I know the Irish Army used to martch to Sousa’s music, at least in the 80’s & 90’s.
Wouldn’t Sousa have been known to the hundreds British brass bands and the public that listened to them?