Jill Biden apparently has her own walk-up music now.
The Marine Corps band was instructed last fall to come up with an entrance theme for the first lady, a source told the Washington Examiner. The band now has in its repertoire an original composition titled “Fanfare for the First Lady.” The song, the source said, is essentially Jill Biden’s personal “Hail to the Chief,” in that it is to be performed and repeated at official White House functions, from her first appearance until she is ready to speak.
“Fanfare for the First Lady” has created both amusement and confusion within the band, with some remarking that in the many years they’ve played in the group, this is the first time the group has had to provide the first lady with an exclusive entrance theme.
Someone in the White House apparently “had the bright idea, ‘Oh, tell the band that we want music for Jill,'” a source said. “The band had to provide music.”
The band was “rushed” to provide the entrance song for the first lady, the source said, adding the Marine Corps band submitted a few options for the White House’s consideration. The first lady’s handlers settled eventually on the original piece “Fanfare to the First Lady.”
Michael LaRosa, Jill Biden’s press secretary, says the entire story is bunkum.
“The first lady does not have a song anybody has written for her specifically. She has no ‘Hail to the Chief’ song. She has no song,” he told the Washington Examiner. “She never asked anyone to create a song.”
“The White House asked nobody, not one person, to compose an exclusive entry song, or any song, for the first lady,” LaRosa added. “None of that is accurate.”
In fact, he said, “Fanfare for the First Lady” was the band’s idea. He said the band approached the White House with a proposal for new music. “Fanfare for the First Lady” wasn’t even initially written for Jill Biden, he continued, adding it’s simply a finalized version of a piece of music that was already nearly completed when the band first broached the topic with the White House.
“We didn’t ask for it,” LaRosa said. “They came and presented us the option. We had no idea it would even be used again.”
The Marine Corps band has made a recording of “Fanfare for the First Lady” to be played in its absence.
Though it’s not unusual for the group’s arrangers to be asked to compose music at a moment’s notice, a source told the Washington Examiner, it is unusual for the first lady to have her own entrance theme. The cherry on top giving the first lady the “Hail to the Chief” treatment, the source said, is this: “The music is just awful.”
“The song is terrible,” the source said, adding it’s ironic a “completely bogus premise” should result in such an “awful” final product.
The Marine Corps band, which did not respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment, has performed “Fanfare for the First Lady” at least twice already, including in October of last year for a Teacher of the Year event held at the White House:
It would be “highly unusual” if the White House instructed the Marine Corps band to compose an entrance song exclusively for the first lady, White House historian Tevi Troy told the Washington Examiner.
However, he added, it wouldn’t be the first time something like this has happened.
In the 1980s, Troy said, then-President Ronald Reagan’s onetime chief of staff Donald Regan similarly demanded the band compose an entrance song just for him, much to the chagrin of then-White House deputy chief of staff Michael Deaver and then-U.S. Secretary of the Treasury James Baker.
Regan, Troy writes, was “imperious, insisting on all kinds of pomp and circumstance. When traveling with the president, Regan demanded that he get his own introduction, as White House chief of staff. [Baker and Deaver] were mortified when they found out — a bad sign for Regan.”
He adds, “A joke went around the White House about the possibility of Regan becoming a Catholic cardinal and why that would be an improvement: ‘That’s good, now,’ the joke went, ‘we’ll only have to kiss his ring.’”
Regan, by the way, didn’t last long as Reagan’s chief of staff. He was booted from the role after a little more than two years on the job.
Dr. Mrs. the first lady, on the other hand, is here for the entirety of her husband’s presidency, so expect to hear “Fanfare for the First Lady” for the next couple of years.
No word yet on whether we should expect an entrance song for second gentleman Doug Emhoff.
This story has been updated with a comment from the White House.
Further Update: April 13, 2022.
The U.S. Marine Band has retired “Fanfare for the First Lady” from its repertoire, the Washington Examiner has learned. The song was removed quietly following the publication of this article, a source said. One source attributed the decision to pull the composition from rotation to “negative” news coverage. We hope the first lady can forgive us for killing her entrance theme.
