The song “Taps” originally was used to signal “lights out” for soldiers to go to sleep, according to “Taps” historian Jari Villanueva, a former ceremonial bugler at Arlington National Cemetery, on Tell Me More, NPR News, May 30, 2011.
General Daniel Butterfield thought that that particular call was just a little too formal-sounding to end the day. So he decided that he would revise that bugle call.
“Taps,” was not so much composed by Gen. Butterfield, but actually a revision of an earlier bugle call that went out of use just prior to the Civil War. He got his brigade bugler, a 22-year-old by the name of Oliver Wilcox Norton, to help him revise that earlier bugle call into those 24 notes that we know today as “Taps.”
Shortly after the song was composed or revised back in 1862, there was a funeral in one of the artillery companies. And the captain in charge, whose name was John Tidball, decided that he did not want to fire the customary three volleys over the grave, since he was afraid that firing those three customary volleys might tell the enemy that we’re going to start fighting again. He just simply told his bugler to sound “Taps.” That became the first time it was associated with a military funeral.
After the Civil War, both “Taps” and the firing of the three volleys became part of our military funerals as we know them today. And it’s become a custom now that you will hear “Taps” on Memorial Day as well as Veterans Day.
It certainly is emotional because when you sound “Taps” at a military funeral, you’re representing the country in — by saying farewell to someone who has served. And if you decide that you want to become emotional with every single performance, you won’t last more than about a month or so. So we tend to step back a little bit and focus in on the mission at hand — sounding “Taps” the best that we can do at that military funeral. And not only with the emotional part, but as a ceremonial trumpeter at Arlington, you also have to deal with the weather. Extreme heat, extreme cold, rain, snow — it all factors into your performance. But you want to make sure that every time that you sound “Taps,” it’s for the family and you want to make it perfect.
It’s become part of our culture, of course, because it’s heard so many times. There’s not a single bugle call in the world that you can identify after hearing the first three notes. And of course, of anyone who’s been to summer camp or has served in the military, they’ll know that that call is sounded every evening as that final call for lights out. And, of course, the many words that were put to that particular song helped ingrain the song itself into our national conscience.
Actually the first words were very inspiring. ‘Go to sleep. Go to sleep. Go to sleep. Put out the lights. Put out the lights. Put out the lights.’ Well, of course, the most familiar one is:
Day is done, gone the sun.
From the lakes, from the hills, from the sky …
All is well, safely rest,
God is nigh.
And that’s probably, those sets of lyrics are probably the most familiar ones that we know. And it’s very interesting that even though “Taps” is an official bugle call of the military, there are no official lyrics because there are many other lyrics that go with it.
This was an excerpt of an interview conducted by NPR of Jari Villanueva.
