Hup, two, three, four…

Marching bands can be fun. They can also be excruciating. A squeaky piccolo is a crime. But who can resist that beat? Especially if the band's doing a number on 'Hang On, Sloopy'?

Here are the answers. We bet you knew them all.

1. In 'Alexander's Ragtime Band', Irving Berlin claims their bugle call is 'so natural that you wanna…' What? Go to war. In the 60s, people preferred to sing, 'that you want to hear some more.' Peace, man.
2. When it comes to the 'New Ashmolean Marching Society and Students' Conservatory Band', the 'analytical, sensitive or critical' will like them more… What? '…the farther back you stand.' But it's 'bully'.
3. What US Army marching song starts, according to schoolboys, with, 'Oh, the monkey wrapped his tail around the flagpole…'? National Emblem. Kind of takes the starch out of it.
4. John Philip Sousa was a great march composer. Which one is John Cleese's favourite? It's got to be the Liberty Bell March. Just ask the Pythons.
5. According to Harold Hill, the Music Man, when the 76 trombones played, he played…what instrument? He was the one and only bass.
6. Who composed the song that goes, again according to schoolboy scholars, 'Pray for the dead, and the dead will pray for you?' Frederic Chopin. (Only he didn't know it.)
7. What British march was made popular worldwide by the film Bridge Over the River Kwai? Colonel Bogey. There are many schoolboy versions of this, too. In the US, one goes, 'Comet will make your teeth turn green…'
8. Recite the chorus to 'Mademoiselle from Armentieres’. You know you want to. Hinky, dinky, parley-vous. It's good to be bilingual.
9. What famous marching song had to be excised from the recording of the World War II North Africa victory revue, even though Winston Churchill loved it? The Ball at Kirriemuir. Get a Scots person to sing it to you, and you will understand why. We can't repeat the words. The filther won't let us.
10. What Johann Strauss march is popular with the US Marine Corps? The Radetzky March. We think it's popular in other places, too.

We're sure you whistled your way through that quiz. Doesn't it make you want to dust off that piccolo?

Dmitri Gheorgheni

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