Goodnight and Goodbye

Bugle taps were never intended as a funeral ballad. Instead, the long, sorrowful notes were always used as “lights out” in the military, a call for troops to end their day and start resting.

But during the Civil War, one captain, so afraid that shooting the three traditional volleys at a burial would make others think fighting had resumed, had a bugler sound taps instead. From that point onward, taps became the standard at military funerals. “Taps is universally known as an American call,” says Jeri Villaneuva, a Master Sergeant in the U.S. Air Force Band, in a History Channel documentary on the origin of taps. “You can play it anywhere in the world, and people will automatically recognize the melody.”

Probably the most notable use of taps is what took place on November 25, 1963 at Arlington National Cemetery – John F. Kennedy’s funeral. The army bugler who sounded taps that day, Keith Clark, waited three hours in the cold for the funeral procession to arrive. “The combination of very cold weather and knowing that over 20 million people are going to be listening to you are like the two worst enemies of any brass player,” says Villaneuva. “And the whole world remembers that he cracked one of the notes.”

Newspapers and magazines picked up on the cracked note, and some attributed it to overwhelming emotion. “His lip, as one put it, quivered for the nation,” says Villaneuva. “It certainly was a mistake, but the fact that it has reached almost a folklore-type status in our country is a wonderful thing. It’s like the crack in the liberty bell. It’s always going to be there.” In this way, taps have become not only a way to say goodnight, but to say goodbye.