'It's Not a Banger': Mixed Reception as US Space Force Releases Official Song
The US Space Force released its official song to a mixed reception on Tuesday, September 20.
An official video released by the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service (DVIDS) features Gen John “Jay” Raymond, chief of space operations, explaining the process of commissioning the song, which is titled Semper Supra, after the force’s official motto. The song itself plays at the end of the video.
Reaction to the song has been mixed, with one poster on the DVIDS page comparing it to the theme from Thunderbirds, while a review on Military.com, which covers US Armed Forces news, declared “It’s not a banger”.
Kevin Baron, executive editor of another military news website, Defense One, gave one of the more positive appraisals of the song, calling it “a fine march” in a tweet. But he went on to add “the lyrics are awful”. Credit: DVIDS via Storyful
Video Transcript
JOHN RAYMOND: First of all, we wanted a song that spoke to our guardians, that brought to life our motto, Semper Supra, Always Above. And I got a text from a gentleman named Jamie Teachenor. Jamie was a Nashville singer-songwriter and who decided he wanted to give back to this country and joined the Air Force and joined the Air Force Band in Colorado Springs. And he supported us when we were Air Force Space Command, and he wrote this song.
JAMIE TEACHENOR: I put together things that from reading white papers and speaking with General Raymond and Chief Towberman. And so it was quite a long work in progress for a while, because I wanted to make sure that everything that was in the song would adequately represent all the capabilities that our Space Force is involved with and make sure I didn't mess up on the mission or the vision of what the Space Force did.
JOHN RAYMOND: When that song came in, it also needed to be arranged. It needed to have the big musical score like all the other songs of service songs have. And so we reached out to composers that they had worked with, and there was a gentleman named Sean Nelson, who is a member of the Coast Guard Band up in Connecticut. And he worked just a masterful arrangement to this song. And then it all comes together into something that I hope guardians around the world will be proud of.
SEAN NELSON: I went for it, and I did what I thought was going to be the most exciting kind of sounds and it seemed to have worked.
JOHN RAYMOND: When I heard that, it was kind of the glue that brought all the three pieces, words, music and the arrangement, together. And I thought, we've got something that we can be proud of.
- We're the mighty watchful eye, guardians beyond the blue. The invisible front line, warfighters brave and true. Boldly reaching into space, there's no limit to our sky. Standing guard both night and day. We're the Space Force from on high.
