The Capitol Steps was an American political-

satire Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming ...

group that performed from 1981 to 2020. Most of the Capitol Steps' material parodied well-known contemporary songs, usually introduced with a short skit. The songs were interspersed with other routines, including a

spoonerism A spoonerism is an occurrence in speech in which corresponding consonants, vowels, or morphemes are switched (see metathesis) between two words in a phrase. These are named after the Oxford don and ordained minister William Archibald Spooner, w ...

routine ("Lirty Dies") near the end of each performance with

innuendo An innuendo is a hint, insinuation or intimation about a person or thing, especially of a denigrating or derogatory nature. It can also be a remark or question, typically disparaging (also called insinuation), that works obliquely by allusion ...

es about recent scandals. They have released over 40 albums, primarily song

parodies A parody, also known as a spoof, a satire, a send-up, a take-off, a lampoon, a play on (something), or a caricature, is a creative work designed to imitate, comment on, and/or mock its subject by means of satiric or ironic imitation. Often its sub ...

. Originally consisting of congressional staffers who performed around

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

, the troupe was later primarily made up of professional actors and singers. The Capitol Steps have performed on

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...

, public radio and in small- and medium-size venues around the United States. On January 13, 2021, the Capitol Steps announced via Twitter that they would be shutting down after 39 years of performing. The shutdown is due to the loss of revenue as a result of the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

Reagan years

In 1981, three

Republican Republican can refer to: Political ideology * An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law. ** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...

congressional staffers ( Bill Strauss, Elaina Newport, and Jim Aidala) used their spare time at the Subcommittee on Energy, Nuclear Proliferation, and Government Processes of the Senate Committee of Governmental Affairs to write and sing

of current events. Joined by fellow Republican Senate staffers Nancy Baskin, Barbie Granzow and Dave Nichols, they decided on a

Christmas Christmas is an annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people around the world. A feast central to the Christian liturgical year ...

show as their first performance while continuing to work full-time as congressional staffers. They chose "The Capitol Steps" as their group name because of a sex scandal earlier that year in which Congressman

John Jenrette John Wilson Jenrette Jr. (born May 19, 1936) is an American former politician from South Carolina, best known for his involvement in the Abscam corruption scandal, and being the husband of actress and model Rita Jenrette. He was in the U.S. Hou ...

had sex with his wife,

Rita Rita may refer to: People * Rita (given name) * Rita (Indian singer) (born 1984) * Rita (Israeli singer) (born 1962) * Rita (Japanese singer) * Eliza Humphreys (1850–1938), wrote under the pseudonym Rita Places * Djarrit, also known as Rita, ...

, on the steps of the Capitol Building. Their first show was a December 11, 1981 Christmas party for the

Senate Foreign Relations Committee The United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations is a standing committee of the U.S. Senate charged with leading foreign-policy legislation and debate in the Senate. It is generally responsible for overseeing and funding foreign aid p ...

. The performers, considering the show a success, performed the same songs several more times that month. In 1982, the group expanded to include House staffers and Democrats. Despite being predominantly Republican, they tried to make their shows bipartisan with a roughly-even mix of songs lampooning Democrats and Republicans. Although the group attracted media interest at the time, they refused interview requests out of concern that their jobs could be endangered by press coverage and their behavior might affect Strauss and Newport's subcommittee chair

Charles H. Percy Charles Harting Percy (September 27, 1919 – September 17, 2011) was an American businessman and politician. He was president of the Bell & Howell Corporation from 1949 to 1964, and served as a Republican U.S. senator from Illinois from 1967 ...

. In February 1983, the Capitol Steps began to perform monthly at the

Shoreham Hotel The Omni Shoreham Hotel is a historic resort and convention hotel in Northwest Washington, D.C., built in 1930 and owned by Omni Hotels. It is located one block west of the intersection of Connecticut Avenue and Calvert Street. The hotel is known ...

and became open to publicity for the first time. They received a favorable review in ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

'', and their performances were successful. In November 1984, they performed at Percy's election-night party; during the party they learned that the senator had lost the election, and Strauss and Newport would lose their jobs with him. Shortly afterwards, the Capitol Steps became a professional group and recorded their first album: '' Capitol Steps Live! at the Shoreham''. In the fall of 1986 the Capitol Steps began performing on a regular basis at Chelsea's Cabaret in the Georgetown area. Three years later, the group decided to quit their full-time jobs. At this time, they included David Gencarelli, Richard Paul, Anne Hill, Ann Schmitt, Brian Ash, and Mike Loomis; all except Loomis and Gencarelli were still with the group in 2012 with Newport. In September 1988, the Capitol Steps performed at the

White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in ...

for an audience which included President Ronald Reagan, his wife Nancy, and hundreds of members of Congress. Through an aide, Reagan asked the group to perform songs poking fun at him; they obliged, and the president enjoyed the show. The Capitol Steps released five albums during Reagan's two presidential terms, including ''Thank God I'm A Contra Boy'', ''We Arm the World'', and ''Workin' 9 to 10''.

George H. W. Bush years

The Capitol Steps expanded their repertoire of material to include international and foreign policy affairs (such as the

United States invasion of Panama The United States invasion of Panama, codenamed Operation Just Cause, lasted over a month between mid-December 1989 and late January 1990. It occurred during the administration of President George H. W. Bush and ten years after the Torrijos� ...

) and local gaffes (such as

George Herbert Walker Bush George Herbert Walker BushSince around 2000, he has been usually called George H. W. Bush, Bush Senior, Bush 41 or Bush the Elder to distinguish him from his eldest son, George W. Bush, who served as the 43rd president from 2001 to 2009; p ...

's recognition of September 7 as

Pearl Harbor Day National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day, also referred to as Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day or Pearl Harbor Day, is observed annually in the United States on December 7, to remember and honor the 2,403 Americans who were killed in the Japanese surpri ...

) after Bush's 1988 election. The group became known for parodying Vice President

Dan Quayle James Danforth Quayle (; born February 4, 1947) is an American politician who served as the 44th vice president of the United States from 1989 to 1993 under President George H. W. Bush. A member of the Republican Party, Quayle served as a U.S. ...

, particularly after Quayle's infamous correction of a child's spelling of "potato" by telling him to add a final ''-e''. The Capitol Steps released six albums during the elder Bush's presidency, including ''Stand By Your Dan'', ''76 Bad Loans'', and ''Georgie on My Mind'', and performed several times at the White House. On three occasions, the president accepted the group's invitation to sing songs poking fun at himself with them onstage.

Clinton years

Before the

Lewinsky scandal Monica Samille Lewinsky (born July 23, 1973) is an American activist and writer. President Bill Clinton admitted to having an affair with Lewinsky while she worked at the White House as an intern in 1995 and 1996. The affair, and its repercus ...

Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton ( né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and agai ...

's administration provided fodder for new songs and albums and a variety of personalities who were easy to exaggerate: the easygoing Clinton and the First Lady, Hillary, Vice-President

Al Gore Albert Arnold Gore Jr. (born March 31, 1948) is an American politician, businessman, and environmentalist who served as the 45th vice president of the United States from 1993 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton. Gore was the Democratic no ...

and Surgeon General

Joycelyn Elders Minnie Joycelyn Elders (born Minnie Lee Jones; August 13, 1933) is an American pediatrician and public health administrator who served as Surgeon General of the United States from 1993 to 1994. A vice admiral in the Public Health Service Commiss ...

, who had suggested that masturbation could be a useful part of a comprehensive sex-education curriculum. In 1994, the Capitol Steps performed at the White House for Clinton and Gore.

George W. Bush years

The 2000 presidential election yielded the pre-election "I Want a Brand New Pair of Candidates" and several other songs about the aborted recount. The popular impression of

George W. Bush George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...

's intellect, fed by his frequent grammatical errors in speeches, allowed the Capitol Steps to reuse much Dan Quayle material. After the events of

September 11, 2001 The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commerc ...

, jokes aimed at the president or American politics no longer seemed appropriate to the general public. The group cancelled most of their performances for the next several weeks, performing an edited show at a nightclub on September 15. It was successful, and they soon found new material that people would find funny in October 2001. The group poked fun at the improved national view of Bush and at figures who were becoming more relevant to the American public, including New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani,

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

Prime Minister

Tony Blair Sir Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. He previously served as Leader of th ...

, and French President Jacques Chirac. Heightened security nationwide soon became a popular subject for the Capitol Steps and other comedians in the wake of media reports that travelers were being questioned in airports for having powdered sugar from a

donut A doughnut or donut () is a type of food made from leavened fried dough. It is popular in many countries and is prepared in various forms as a sweet snack that can be homemade or purchased in bakeries, supermarkets, food stalls, and fra ...

on their clothing. By the end of the year, the group was poking fun at terrorists. In 2002 and 2003, their material lampooned

SUV A sport utility vehicle (SUV) is a car classification that combines elements of road-going passenger cars with features from off-road vehicles, such as raised ground clearance and four-wheel drive. There is no commonly agreed-upon definiti ...

s and their drivers,

Hans Blix Hans Martin Blix (; born 28 June 1928) is a Swedish diplomat and politician for the Liberal People's Party. He was Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs (1978–1979) and later became the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency. As suc ...

, the collapse of

Enron Enron Corporation was an American energy, commodities, and services company based in Houston, Texas. It was founded by Kenneth Lay in 1985 as a merger between Lay's Houston Natural Gas and InterNorth, both relatively small regional compani ...

, the standoff with

Saddam Hussein Saddam Hussein ( ; ar, صدام حسين, Ṣaddām Ḥusayn; 28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003. A leading member of the revolutio ...

, Condoleezza Rice, Democratic hopefuls for the 2004 presidential nomination, the capture of Saddam Hussein, same-sex weddings, the Kobe Bryant

trial In law, a trial is a coming together of parties to a dispute, to present information (in the form of evidence) in a tribunal, a formal setting with the authority to adjudicate claims or disputes. One form of tribunal is a court. The tribunal ...

, and the

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

gubernatorial recall election (in which they reused "The Fondler"—a Clinton-era parody of "The Wanderer"—with Arnold Schwarzenegger as the target). Since 2004 the Capitol Steps have remained topical with their parodies, releasing songs about the marriage of Prince Charles and

Camilla Parker Bowles Camilla (born Camilla Rosemary Shand, later Parker Bowles, 17 July 1947) is Queen Consort of the United Kingdom and the 14 other Commonwealth realms as the wife of King Charles III. She became queen consort on 8 September 2022, upon the acc ...

, U.S. immigration-reform-law proposals, and the

Tom DeLay Thomas Dale DeLay (; born April 8, 1947) is an American author and retired politician who served as a member of the United States House of Representatives, representing Texas's 22nd congressional district from 1985 until 2006. He was Republic ...

scandals. On December 18, 2007, group co-founder Bill Strauss died at his home in McLean, Virginia of pancreatic cancer.

Obama years

They released several albums during the Obama administration, including ''Mock the Vote'', ''How to Succeed in Congress without Really Lying'', ''Fiscal Shades of Gray'', ''Take the Money and Run for President'', ''Desperate Housemembers'', ''Liberal Shop of Horrors'', and ''Obama Mia''.

Trump years

They released ''Orange Is the New Barack'' in 2017.

Biden years

On January 25, 2021, an update on the Capitol Steps website indicated that "the Capitol Steps are planning to turn off the stage lights".

Live shows

In 2008, Mark Eaton stated they had booked over 700 shows. As of 2017, the Capitol Steps had multiple casts, with 24 cast members: * Brian Ash * Jon Bell * Bari Biern * Mike Carruthers * Evan Casey * Jenny Corbett * Kevin Corbett * Janet Davidson Gordon * Nancy Dolliver * Morgan Duncan * Mark Eaton * Corey Harris * Prince Havely * Emily Levey * Elaina Newport * Richard Paul * Jack Rowles * Ann Schmitt * Tracey Stephens * Mike Thornton * Brad Van Grack * Delores Williams * Anne Willis Hill * Jamie Zemarel As of 2017 the group also had five pianists: * Emily Bell Spitz * Howard Breitbart * Marc Irwin * David Kane * Lenny Williams The group performed public and private shows throughout the country, and appeared at the

Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center The Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center, named after former United States President Ronald Reagan, is located in downtown Washington, D.C., and was the first federal building in Washington designed for both governmental and priv ...

in Washington, D.C. every Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m. year-round.

Recordings

Since their first album in 1984, the Capitol Steps have released a new recording of their songs, parodies, and sketches at least once a year (usually in the late spring). The group has also released holiday recordings in 1989, 1993 and 2006. A 2001 "special high school release", revised and re-released in 2005, is made up of songs written for participants of the National Young Leaders Conference in Washington, at which the group has performed. Their 20th-anniversary book included a CD retrospective of their work.

Discography

Albums

# ''Capitol Steps Live! at the Shoreham'' (1984) # '' We Arm the World'' (1985) # ''Thank God I'm a Contra Boy'' (1986) # ''Workin' 9 to 10'' (1987) # ''Shamlet'' (1988) # ''Stand By Your Dan'' (1989) # ''Danny's First Noel'' (1989 holiday release) # ''Georgie on My Mind'' (1989–1990) # ''Sheik, Rattle and Roll'' (1990) # ''76 Bad Loans'' (1991) # ''Fools on the Hill'' (1992) # ''The Joy of Sax'' (1993) # ''All I Want for Christmas Is a Tax Increase'' (1993 holiday release) # ''Lord of the Fries'' (1994) # ''A Whole Newt World'' (1995) # ''Return to Center'' (1996) # ''Sixteen Scandals'' (1997) # ''Unzippin' My Doo-dah'' (1998) # ''First Lady and the Tramp'' (1999) # ''It's Not Over 'Til the First Lady Sings'' (2000) # ''I Want It Dad's Way'' (2001 high-school release, revised and re-released in 2005) # ''One Bush, Two Bush, Old Bush, New Bush'' (2001) # ''

When Bush Comes to Shove ''When Bush Comes to Shove'' is a 2002 album by the Capitol Steps. Track listing #Shoe-Bomb #Don't Go Faking You're Smart #Enron-Ron-Ron #Tom Ridge Bedtime Story #1 #Taliban #Pack the Knife #Mr. Greenspan #Dr. Tommy Tuck #Everybody Must Get Clo ...

'' (2002) # ''

Between Iraq and a Hard Place ''Between Iraq and a Hard Place'' is a 2003 album by the Capitol Steps. Track listing #"God Bless My SUV" #"Hans Blix and the Inspectors" #"401K" #"Korea" #"Clinton Thinks the French Have a Lot of Gaul" #"Talk 'bout Saddam" #"I've Grown a Cultu ...

'' (2003) # '' Papa's Got a Brand New Baghdad'' (2004) # '' Four More Years in the Bush Leagues'' (2005) # '' I'm So Indicted'' (2006) # ''O Christmas Bush'' (2006 holiday release) # ''Springtime for Liberals'' (2007) # ''Campaign and Suffering'' (2008) # ''Obama Mia!'' (2009) # ''Barackin' Around the Christmas Tree'' (2009 holiday release) # ''Liberal Shop of Horrors'' (2010) # ''Desperate House Members'' (2011) # ''Weiner Wonderland'' (2011 holiday release) # ''Take the Money and Run for President'' (2012) # ''Fiscal Shades of Grey'' (2013) # ''How to Succeed in Congress Without Really Lying'' (2014) # ''Mock the Vote'' (2015) # ''What to Expect When You're Electing'' (2016) # ''Orange Is the New Barack'' (2017) # ''Make America Grin Again'' (2018) # ''The Lyin' Kings'' (2019)

Singles

The group released ''Ronald the Red-Faced Reagan'' for the 1987 holidays and ''From Yankee Doodle to Pander Bear'', a history of American political satire, early in Bill Clinton's first term.

References

External links

Official Website
* https://www.youtube.com/user/CapitolSteps * Allmusic entry for the Capitol Steps* Allmusic entry for Bill Strauss* Allmusic entry for Elaina Newport* Allmusic entry for Mark Eaton {{DEFAULTSORT:Steps, Capitol American satirists American parodists American political satire Parody musicians 1981 establishments in Washington, D.C. 2021 disestablishments in Washington, D.C.