Talk:The Washington Post (march)

"Washington Post", "The Washington Post", or "The Washington Post March?"
Believing that the correct title of the famous Sousa march was The Washington Post, I confidently tinkered, moving The Washington Post March to The Washington Post (march), and editing articles accordingly. (E. g. in The Washington Post I wrote, "The Washington Post is also the title of a march..."

Then I decided to see whether I could notate the melody of the opening strain. And found to my chagrin that one of my three recordings simply calls it Washington Post (no "The", although some of the other marches, like "The Thunderer," had their titles given with a "The"). Another calls it The Washington Post... and a third calls it The Washington Post March.

a) Anyone know which really is the correct title of the march?

b) Anyone know a convenient way to resolve this sort of question? Googling isn't it, both because of the difficulty of constructing proper searches to pick up only one of the three variants, but also because it is obvious that writers are not punctilious about the title of this work and "most frequent" would not necessarily be "correct." For example, I'm pretty darn sure the title of the famous Strauss waltz is "On the Beautiful Blue Danube", not "The Blue Danube waltz," but both give almost identical numbers of Google hits.

Zen answers, such as that it doesn't matter because nobody cares, or that the correctness of the title of marches is not altered by adding the word "march" to a title that lacks one or removing the word "march" from a title that has one, are not needed. (And no, don't bother to tell me that the actual title of the Strauss waltz is "An Der Schonen Blauen Danau...") Dpbsmith 00:21, 23 May 2004 (UTC)


 * I'm a big fan of Sousa, so I checked my CD from the US Marine Corps band. On that CD, it's labeled as The Washington Post March.  I realize it's not definitive, but it's a pretty solid indication IMO. I figure the Marines know what they're doing. ;-) -- Dan Carlson 15:08, May 23, 2004 (UTC)


 * Indeed. Is that the same one I have, "Sousa Original?" from the Musical Heritage Society? On that one, about 2/3 of the titles are listed as ending with the word "march;" "Manhattan Beach March", "Saber and Spurs March","The Gridiron Club March", King Cotton March... But OTOH Frederick Fennell, who made his career recording Sousa marches with the Eastman Wind Ensemble for Mercury Records, also knows what he's doing (and is an academician), and "Hands Across the Sea" CD lists it as "Washington Post" (no "The", no "March").  Oh, and http://www.crystalrecords.com/Sousa.html is selling what they claim to be remastered versions of recordings made by the Sousa Band from 1897-1930, who should also know what they're doing, and if the Web listing is an accurate transcription of the record labels, it's "The Washington Post". The Britannica's article on Sousa refers to "The Washington Post." The Columbia Encyclopedia prefers "The Washington Post March" . Dpbsmith 16:31, 23 May 2004 (UTC)


 * I think the most authoritative answer would be the manuscript or first published version. I don't live very near a good music library, but the next time I go through a city that has one, I would be interested in looking that up.


 * I wonder if there is a Sousa archive on the Internet that might have scans of this sort of thing? I'll scout around a little.


 * When I've heard it performed live, I only recall hearing it introduced as "The Washington Post." Glenn6502 22:40, 24 May 2004 (UTC)


 * (later) I checked the University of Illinois, which has the major collection of Sousa's manuscripts. Their on-line index does not include "The Washington Post" under any variant of the title.  I'll put looking for published versions on my to-do list for my next visit to a university.  Glenn6502 00:22, 25 May 2004 (UTC)

I too have heard it call both "The Washington Post" and the "The Washington Post March". After Googling "Sousa, Washington, and Post, I find that internet sources are 2-1 in favor of "The Washington Post". Logically, if it were "The Washington Post March", wouldn't it also be "The Stars and Stripes Forever March"? Scout32 19:41, 28 May 2004 (UTC)

A brief search turned up this image of an autograph arrangement for keyboard from the Library of Congress. It shows "The Washington Post" at the top with "March" underneath in smaller writing. I interpret this to mean "The Washington Post" is the title, and the piece is a march; but I can see how one might also take both lines for the title. Ortonmc 19:10, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC)


 * Oh, that's way cool. It didn't turn up in my brief search. Can we use that image in the article?
 * The manuscript itself is dated 1889, so it's passed into the public domain; and the image is from the LoC, which would be a U.S. Government work (also public domain). So I believe it's fair game. Ortonmc 20:11, 3 Jun 2004 (UTC)


 * BTW I have an interlibrary loan request in for the Dover Publications collection of Sousa marches which is I believe is reproduced from the original sheet music, which hopefully will provide another data point.


 * I realize that the whole question has sort of a Zen-like quality. 78 rpm and 45 rpm records of popular dance music would often have the words "Fox Trot" or "Waltz" or whatever, in a way that made it rather ambiguous whether they were to be considered part of the title. In fact it seems to me that, unlike books, which usually have a very well-defined title, the details of titles of pieces of music are rather variable. It occurs to me that there's a similar ambiguity about which titles of Scott Joplin's ragtime pieces include the word "rag." I'm sure it's "The Maple Leaf Rag," not "The Maple Leaf," but I think it's just "The Entertainer" and "The Cascades." Dpbsmith 20:01, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC)

OK, my book came in at the library. The front page of the sheet music is now in the main article. It shows an artistically dilapidated newspaper front page saying, conspicuously, "The Washington Post." with a period at the end. Or, actually, "he Washington Post." since a fragment is torn off. Then separately, at the bottom, it says "March by John Philip Sousa, Director Band USMC." The first page of the music itself is:



What with the two lines and the period at the end of each line, I read this to mean "The title of this composition is The Washington Post and it is a march." Dpbsmith 00:38, 3 Jun 2004 (UTC)

In films
I'm not sure whether we even need to mention its use in films. As one of the most popular and recognizable marches of all time, I am sure it must have been used in hundreds of films. It would be an obvious choice for a "generic" march, any situation in which a hometown band is marching down a small-town street and the director wants a march that is familiar, appropriate to the situation, and yet carries no particular meaning. "The Stars and Stripes Forever" signals patriotism, "Colonel Bogie" would make everyone think of a very different movie, "The Yellow Rose of Texas" would make people think of the words to the song, "Seventy-Six Trombones" is associated with The Music Man... but "The Washington Post" is just a good, lively, all-purpose, stirring, familiar American march. Dpbsmith (talk) 20:09, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Key signature
The image in this article has the wrong key signature; the song is in the key os G major, which has one sharp, not two. Georgia guy 22:58, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Late reply, but this is right. The image shows incorrect notation in other ways too. Impressive number of mistakes for such a short excerpt. 192.91.173.36 (talk) 09:59, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

There seems to be an error in bar 14 67.163.165.140 (talk) 05:03, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Plausible but unsourced speculation
I'm removing
 * The tendency of writers to call it The Washington Post March arose in order to prevent confusion with the newspaper for which it was named.

There's no source citation, and I don't think this is anything more than a plausible speculation.

Actually, I'm not even sure it's correct.

1) I'm not sure there's any such "tendency." It took me a while to sort out the story because a random sampling of recording labels, album liners, random references in written material included "Washington Post," "The Washington Post," and "The Washington Post March" with no form of the title clearly predominating.

2) In the second place, many of Sousa's other marches show a similar variation in way in which the title is rendered (e.g. "The Liberty Bell").

3) In the third place, CD label and booklet listings tend to follow a pattern in which, if the title of one piece is presented using the word "march" then the title of most of the others will be, and conversely. If the label says "The Washington Post March" it will probably say "The Thunderer March" and "The Picadore March" and so forth; if it just says "The Liberty Bell" and "The Invincible Eagle" it will probably just say "The Washington Post."

4) And, finally, other pieces of music show similar variations, e.g. "Blue Danube," "The Blue Danube," "The Blue Danube Waltz," "On the Beautiful Blue Danube," etc.

In other words, I don't think this is anything peculiar to this particular march.

I'll gladly stand corrected if someone finds a source citation. Dpbsmith (talk) 20:42, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

The march made the newspaper famous?
I'm moving this very-interesting-if-true assertion here: Many have argued that this march brought the once-average newspaper instant fame and attention. Anyone who can provide a reference to one of the "many" who have argued this should reinsert it in the article, referencing and quoting the source. Dpbsmith (talk) 22:40, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

I had always heard it was named after the Marine's Washington Post, i. e., the barracks and 8th and I Street (sometimes spelled Eye Street), not the newspaper. This part about the newspaper contest is new to me Stargzer (talk) 12:24, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

In popular culture
I'm moving the entire list here, because I don't think the use of the music is important or significant in any of them.

In all but two, I don't see any significance whatsoever in the choice of the music beyond its being familiar march music. Why couldn't Jan just as well have practiced her cheerleading to The Thunderer? Why couldn't the marines just as well have played Semper Fidelis as they marched into the Moroccan sultan's castle?

The exceptions are 1) the "Tigers" action figures commercial, in which the words are said to have been specifically set to the march music; but I doubt that this commercial is an important piece of popular culture; and 2) its use in the Sousa biopic Stars and Stripes Forever, but it hardly seems surprising or important that the film used familiar Sousa marches. Dpbsmith (talk) 23:43, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Uses in pop culture
The march has been used many times in popular media. A few examples:
 * Stars and Stripes Forever, a Hollywood film about John Philip Sousa's life featured the tune prominently.
 * The mid-1960s TV ads for a collection of soldier action figures called "Tigers" featured a jingle which put words to the middle section of the march, singing "Machinegun Mike has a combat kit" and so on.
 * The Wind and The Lion (1975) a U.S. Marine band plays the march as they enter the Morrocan Sultan's castle after it was seized by an armed contingent of marines seeking the return of kidnapped Americans.
 * Animal House (1978), the marching band plays the march during the Homecoming Parade near the end of the movie, while being misdirected into a blind alley.
 * Back to the Future (1985), during the Mayoral elections of that movie's time periods and an automobile Hover   Conversion commercial
 * Dumb and Dumberer (2003), during the Thanksgiving Day Parade towards the end of the movie featuring the star characters.
 * A 2004 Hyundai commercial (where a marching band playing this piece follows a Hyundai around).
 * The M*A*S*H film (1970), during the football game
 * In an episode of The Brady Bunch where Jan is practicing for Cheerleading in the backyard, this march is playing.
 * This music is used in the movie Grease (1978).
 * In Assassins, the 1991 musical by Stephen Sondheim, the opening notes are used repeatedly by the witnesses of the attempted assassination of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the song "How I Saved Roosevelt" (the number begins with a rendition of Sousa's El Capitan, pieces of which can also be heard throughout it).
 * This piece is also played in Flags of Our Fathers (film) (2006).

There be lawyers here
This article states: "The composition is now in the public domain in the U.S., as its copyright has expired. However, almost all sound recordings of the march are under copyright. Sound recordings fixed on or after February 15, 1972 are protected by federal copyright law, with certain very narrow exceptions. Recordings fixed before that date are under state copyright laws, many of which have no fixed duration, and federal law will not preempt state law for those recordings until 2067.[2] The sound file accompanying this article, however, is in the public domain in the U.S. because as a recording by the United States Marine Band, it is a work of the United States government not subject to copyright." What does this have to do with the history or story of this musical piece? If one was a lawyer perhaps, it may be of some interest, but to someone seeking knowledge of the subject of the article, it is pretty useless. At best, it belongs in a footnote - it really should just go away. Jmdeur (talk) 14:35, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Yep. Almost all recordings of the march that people bother with are made by US military bands, particularly the United States Marine Band. 97.104.88.146 (talk) 05:49, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

Original synthesis in Title section
The Title section of this article seems to contain original synthesis. It claims that the "correct" name of the piece is "The Washington Post," and cites sources for the evidence used in the argument, but does not cite sources for the conclusion drawn from that evidence. Wikipedia editors should not be drawing their own conclusions from the presented facts. Unless a reliable source can be provided for this analysis, it should be considered original synthesis and should be removed. —Bkell (talk) 07:51, 22 January 2011 (UTC)


 * After digging into the article's history a bit, I see that most of this section comes from an edit made by Dpbsmith on 20 September 2004, shortly following a discussion on this talk page. Since the claim about the "correct name" of the march seems to be based on various Wikipedia editors' interpretations of the title on the printed sheet music, this is pretty clearly original synthesis. I have removed the section. If anyone can provide a reliable source for this claim, it can be reinstated. —Bkell (talk) 08:01, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Additional citations
Why, what, where, and how does this article need additional citations for verification? Hyacinth (talk) 15:09, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Subjective judgment
"“March enthusiasts have argued that the trio sections' mellow and moving phrases are among Sousa's most musical. Six sudden eighth notes move the melody along. Its unusually calm break strain is a simple adaptation of the trio melody. It then moves on to the first trio repeat, where §the low brass begins an even more mellow countermelody.”" While I happen to agree with all of this, who are these mysterious “march enthusiasts”, and in what venue to they argue? Surely a sourcing footnote would be here in order. Vesuvius Dogg (talk) 12:43, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

Delete paragraph?
"The composition is in the public domain in the US, as its copyright has expired, due to Sousa having been dead for more than 70 years and it having been published before the early 1920s."

Is this paragraph necessary, or desirable? If there's a desire to retain it, what would be the argument? I mean, why this piece and not every other piece that's presently out of copyright? I'm not going to inordinately concern myself with this, but if nobody says anything and I think of it later, I might delete this sentence. Bret Sterling (talk) 18:40, 17 July 2023 (UTC)