My version of “Retire & To The Colors” is actually a callback to my childhood growing up as an Air Force brat. I don’t know if it’s something they still do now or not, but back in the Cold War days when I lived on base, they would play this bugle call at 5 p.m. every weekday over the base’s speaker system. Which is, if you’ve never seen one, very powerful and reaches every inch of the base, designed to warn us all about severe weather and, of course, incoming military attacks. Technically it was two bugle calls one after the other — “Retire” and “To The Colors.” “Retire” is the call for everyone to stop work; “To The Colors” is the subsequent call to bring the flag down. Bugle calls, in addition to sending messages to the troops, have been a stand-in for a full orchestra/band for honoring the flag, when no band was available. “To The Colors,” then, among troops, is to be treated like hearing the national anthem.
Which makes for the most interesting note, especially to non-military people: so, if you were outdoors, on foot, when the “Retire” started playing over the system at 5 p.m., you had to stop and stand quietly, as if it were the national anthem being played. Adults, kids, everybody — standing still in place for about 90 seconds while the bugle call played. And it’s at this point in the conversation where I end up telling everyone about how, at the base/post movie theaters, a video of the national anthem played and everyone stood up for it. Occasionally we’d take a friend from off-base to the movies without mentioning the anthem thing and just watch their reaction…good stuff.
Anyhow, I sat down and started toying with those bugle call melodies — three of which (Reveille, Taps & Retire) made it onto the album — thinking it would be impossible to turn them into little self-sufficient little rockers. But wow, I was really surprised at how well “Retire” came out. I think it’s actually my favorite song on the album. Check it out and see what you think!
