With music strong I come, with my cornets and my drums,
I play not marches for accepted victors only, I play marches for
conquer'd and slain persons.

Have you heard that it was good to gain the day?
I also say it is good to fall, battles are lost in the same spirit in
which they are won.

I beat and pound for the dead,
I blow through my embouchures my loudest and gayest for them.

The music at a wedding procession always reminds me of the music of soldiers going into battle.

Song of myself
With music strong I come, with my cornets and my drums,
I play not marches for accepted victors only, I play marches for
conquer'd and slain persons.

Have you heard that it was good to gain the day?
I also say it is good to fall, battles are lost in the same spirit
in which they are won.

I beat and pound for the dead,
I blow through my embouchures my loudest and gayest for them.

Vivas to those who have fail'd!
And to those whose war-vessels sank in the sea!
And to those themselves who sank in the sea!
And to all generals that lost engagements, and all overcome heroes!
And the numberless unknown heroes equal to the greatest heroes known!

Military justice is to justice what military music is to music.

Military justice is to justice what military music is to music.

All musical instruments are useful for love and exhortation. Only one is essential for war. The drums. The drums are thin skin stretched tightly over hollow volumes, mostly of wood, which gives them their earthiness, their sexiness. Slapping without the tickling. The hand or the stick bounces across the skin of the drums, throwing the listener forward into a dance, into a physical response. For war, and in particular marching to war, wood was replaced by metal. The snare, as it’s known for good reason, supplies body armor to the already athletic muscular choices available. There is a particular violence built into the snare drum, and the rat-a-tat of a military tattoo was exactly what we were looking for with the opening of “Sunday Bloody Sunday.

A good song reminds us what we're fighting for.

If one plays good music, people don't listen, and if one plays bad music people don't talk.

It was sad music. But it waved its sadness like a battle flag. It said the universe had done all it could, but you were still alive.

When the Naysayers Are Loud, Turn Up the Music

These are the thoughts of all men in all ages and
lands, they are
not original with me,
If they are not yours as much as mine they are nothing
or next to
nothing,
If they do not enclose everything they are next to
nothing,
If they are not the riddle and the untying of the
riddle they are
nothing,
If they are not just as close as they are distant they
are nothing.
This is the grass that grows wherever the land is and
the water is,
This is the common air that bathes the globe.
This is the breath of laws and songs and behaviour,
This is the tasteless water of souls.... this is the true
sustenance,
It is for the illiterate.... it is for the judges of the supreme
court . . . . it is for the federal capitol and the state
capitols,
It is for the admirable communes of literary men
and composers
and singers and lecturers and engineers and savans,
It is for the endless races of working people and
farmers and
seamen.
This is the trill of a thousand clear cornets and
scream of the octave flute and strike of triangles.
I play not a march for victors only.... I play great
marches for conquered and slain persons.
Have you heard that it was good to gain the day?
I also say it is good to fall.... battles are lost in the
same spirit
in which they are won.

Great music is in a sense serene; it is certain of the values it asserts. But it is also in terror, because those values are threatened, and it is not certain whether they will triumph in this world, and of course music is a missionary effort to colonise earth for imperialistic heaven.

The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils; The motions of his spirit are dull as night, And his affections dark as Erebus. Let no such man be trusted. Mark the music.

Rock 'n' roll is the sound of revenge, all right.