The Stars and Stripes Forever

• Sousa conducted his band in the first performance of this march at Willow Grove Park (near Philadelphia) on May 14, 1897.¹

“It is stirring enough to rouse the American eagle from his crag, and set him to shriek exultantly while he hurls his arrows at the aurora borealis.” 

Review from the Philadelphia Public Ledger (May 14, 1897)²

“Someone asked, ‘Who influenced you to compose ‘Stars and Stripes Forever,’ and before the question was hardly asked, Sousa replied, ‘God–and I say this in all reverence! I was in Europe and I got a cablegram that my manager was dead. I was in Italy and I wished to get home as soon as possible. I rushed to Genoa, then to Paris and to England and sailed for America. On board the steamer as I walked miles up and down the deck, back and forth, a mental band was playing ‘Stars and Stripes Forever.’ Day after day as I walked it persisted in crashing into my very soul. I wrote it on Christmas Day, 1896.’” 

From a Sousa Band concert program at a Willow Grove performance³

• Sousa once told the press that three themes in the march represent three regions of the United States: the opening main theme is the North, the piccolo theme is the South, and the trombone counter-melody is the West.⁴

1. “The Stars and Stripes Forever (Sousa, John Philip),” IMSLP, accessed April 8, 2021, https://imslp.org/wiki/The_Stars_and_Stripes_Forever_(Sousa%2C_John_Philip).
2. E. Bierley, The Works of John Philip Sousa (Westerville, Ohio: Integrity Press, 1984), 43, in “The Stars and Stripes Forever,” The Presidents’ Own United States Marine Band, accessed April 8, 2021, https://www.marineband.marines.mil/Audio-Resources/The-Complete-Marches-of-John-Philip-Sousa/The-Stars-and-Stripes-Forever-March/.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.