| "Yankee Doodle" | |
|---|---|
 The first verse and refrain of "Yankee Doodle", engraved on the footpath in a park | |
| Song | |
| Published | 1755 |
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"Yankee Doodle" is a traditional song andnursery rhyme, the early versions of which predate theSeven Years' War andAmerican Revolutionary War.[1] It is often sung patriotically in the United States today. It is thestate song of theU.S. state ofConnecticut.[2] ItsRoud Folk Song Index number is 4501.
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The tune of "Yankee Doodle" is thought to be much older than the lyrics, being well known acrosswestern Europe, includingEngland,France, theNetherlands,Hungary, andSpain.[3] The melody of the song may have originated from anIrish tune "All the way to Galway", in which the second strain is identical to Yankee Doodle.[4][5] There are rumors that the earliest words of "Yankee Doodle" came from aMiddle Dutch harvest song which is thought to have followed the same tune, supposedly dating back as far as 15th-century Holland.[6][7] It supposedly contained mostlynonsense words in English and Dutch: "Yanker, didel, doodle down, Diddle, dudel, lanther, Yanke viver, voover vown,Botermilk undtanther."[3][8][7] Farm laborers in Holland were paid "as muchbuttermilk (Botermelk) as they could drink, and a tenth (tanther) of the grain".[8][7]
The termDoodle first appeared in English in the early 17th century[9] and is thought to be derived from theLow Germandudel, meaning "playing music badly", orDödel, meaning "fool" or "simpleton". TheMacaroni wig was an extreme fashion in the 1770s and became slang for being afop.[10]Dandies were men who placed particular importance upon physical appearance, refined language, and leisure hobbies. A self-made dandy was a British middle-class man who impersonated an aristocratic lifestyle. They notably wore silk strip cloth, stuck feathers in their hats, and carried two pocket watches with chains—"one to tell what time it was and the other to tell what time it was not".[11]
The macaroni wig was an example of suchRococo dandy fashion, popular in elite circles in Western Europe and much-mocked in the London press. The termmacaroni was used to describe a fashionable man who dressed and spoke in an outlandishly affected and effeminate manner. The term pejoratively referred to a man who "exceeded the ordinary bounds of fashion"[12] in terms of clothes, fastidious eating, and gambling.
In British conversation, the term "Yankee doodle dandy" implied unsophisticated misappropriation of upper-class fashion, as though simply sticking a feather in one's cap would transform the wearer into a noble.[13] Peter McNeil, a professor of fashion studies, claims that the British were insinuating that the colonists were lower-class men who lacked masculinity, emphasizing that the American men were womanly.[14]
The song was a pre-Revolutionary War song originally sung by British military officers to mock the disheveled, disorganized colonial "Yankees" with whom they served in theFrench and Indian War. It was written atFort Crailo around 1755 byBritish Army surgeon Richard Shuckburgh while campaigning inRensselaer, New York.[15] The British troops sang it to mock American soldiers as simpletons who thought that they were stylish simply by sticking a feather in their hats.[1] It was also embraced by American troops, who added verses to it that mocked the British and hailedGeorge Washington. By 1781, "Yankee Doodle" had become a song of national pride among Americans.[1][16][17]
According to one account, Shuckburgh wrote the original lyrics after seeing the appearance of Colonial troops under ColonelThomas Fitch, the son of Connecticut GovernorThomas Fitch.[18] According to theOnline Etymology Dictionary, "the current version seems to have been written in 1776 by Edward Bangs, aHarvard sophomore who also was aMinuteman."[15] He wrote a ballad with 15 verses which circulated inBoston and surrounding towns in 1775 or 1776.[19]
A bill was introduced to the House of Representatives on July 25, 1999,[20] recognizingBillerica, Massachusetts, as "America's Yankee Doodle Town". After theBattle of Lexington and Concord, a Boston newspaper reported:
Upon their return to Boston [pursued by the Minutemen], one [Briton] asked his brother officer how he liked the tune now, – "Dang them", returned he, "they made us dance it till we were tired" – since which Yankee Doodle sounds less sweet to their ears.
The earliest known version of the lyrics comes from 1755 or 1758 (the date of origin is disputed):[21]
Brother Ephraim sold his Cow
Andbought him a Commission;
And then he went to Canada
To fight for the Nation;
But when Ephraim he came home
He proved an arrant Coward,
He wouldn't fight the Frenchmen there
For fear of being devoured.
The sheet music which accompanies these lyrics reads, "The Words to be Sung through the Nose, & in theWest Country drawl & dialect." The tune also appeared in 1762 in one of United States first comic operasThe Disappointment, with bawdy lyrics about the search forBlackbeard's buried treasure by a team from Philadelphia.[22] An alternate verse that the British are said to have marched to is attributed to an incident involving Thomas Ditson ofBillerica, Massachusetts.[23] Ditson attempted to purchase aBrown Bess musket from a British soldier in the47th Regiment of Foot in Boston in March 1775; after a group of the soldier's comrades spotted the transaction as it was occurring, theytarred and feathered Ditson in order to prevent any such illegal purchases from happening in the future. Ditson eventually managed to secure a musket and fought at the Battles of Lexington and Concord.[24] For this reason, the town of Billerica is called the home of "Yankee Doodle":[25][26]
Yankee Doodle came to town,
For to buy a firelock,
We will tar and feather him,
And so we willJohn Hancock.
Another pro-British set of lyrics believed to have used the tune was published in June 1775 following theBattle of Bunker Hill:[27]
The seventeenth of June, at Break of Day,
The Rebels they supriz'd us,
With their strong Works, which they'd thrown up,
To burn the Town and drive us.
"Yankee Doodle" was played at the British surrender atSaratoga in 1777.[28] A variant is preserved in the 1810 edition ofGammer Gurton's Garland: Or, The Nursery Parnassus, collected byFrancis Douce, now in theBodleian Library, Oxford:
Yankee Doodle came to town,
How do you think they serv'd him?
One took his bag, another his scrip,
The quicker for to starve him.[29]
| The Spirit of '76 (akaYankee Doodle) | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Artist | Archibald Willard |
| Year | c. 1875 |
| Type | Oil |
| Dimensions | 61 cm × 45 cm (24 in × 18 in) |
| Location | Abbot Hall, Marblehead Massachusetts |
The full version of the song as it is known today:[30][31]
Yankee Doodle went to town
A-riding on a pony,
Stuck a feather in his cap
And called itmacaroni.
[Chorus]
Yankee Doodle keep it up,
Yankee Doodledandy,
Mind the music and the step,
And with the girls be handy.
Father and I went down to camp,
Along with Captain Gooding,[a]
And there we saw the men and boys
As thick ashasty pudding.
[Chorus]
And there we saw a thousand men
As rich as Squire David,
And what they wasted every day,
I wish it could be savèd.
[Chorus]
The'lasses they eat every day,
Would keep a house a winter;
They have so much, that I'll be bound,
They eat it when they've a mind to.
[Chorus]
And there I see a swamping[b] gun
Large as a log of maple,
Upon adeuced little cart,
A load for father's cattle.
[Chorus]
And every time they shoot it off,
It takes ahorn of powder,
And makes a noise like father's gun,
Only a nation[c] louder.
[Chorus]
I went as nigh to one myself
As 'Siah's underpinning;
And father went as nigh again,
I thought the deuce was in him.
[Chorus]
Cousin Simon grew so bold,
I thought he would have cocked it;
It scared me so I shrinked it off
And hung by father's pocket.
[Chorus]
And Cap'n Davis had a gun,
He kind of clapt his hand on't
And stuck a crooked stabbing iron
Upon the little end on't
[Chorus]
And there I see a pumpkin shell
As big as mother's basin,
And every time they touched it off
They scampered like the nation.
[Chorus]
I see a little barrel too,
The heads were made of leather;
They knocked on it with little clubs
And called the folks together.
[Chorus]
And there was Cap'nWashington,
And gentle folks about him;
They say he's grown so 'tarnal proud
He will not ride without 'em.
[Chorus]
He got him on his meeting clothes,
Upon a slapping stallion;
He sat the world along in rows,
In hundreds and in millions.
[Chorus]
The flaming ribbons in his hat,
They looked so tearing fine, ah,
I wanted dreadfully to get
To give to my Jemima.
[Chorus]
I see another snarl of men
A-digging graves, they told me,
So 'tarnal long, so 'tarnal deep,
They 'tended they should hold me.
[Chorus]
It scared me so, I hooked it off,
Nor stopped, as I remember,
Nor turned about till I got home,
Locked up in mother's chamber.
[Chorus]
The tune shares with theEnglish languagenursery rhymes "Simple Simon", "Jack and Jill", and "Lucy Locket", as well as the Japanesedōyō "Alps Ichiman Jaku".[35] It also inspired the theme tune for the children's television series,Barney & the Backyard Gang,Barney & Friends, and the 1960s US cartoon seriesRoger Ramjet. Danish bandToy-Box sampled the tune in their song "E.T".
The American state broadcasterVoice of America (VOA) uses the tune of Yankee Doodle as theirinterval signal. There is uncertainty over the origin of the VOA's decision to use the tune. In his 1990 memoirBeing Red,Howard Fast claimed that while working as the VOA's chief news writer and news director in 1943, he selected "as a joke" Yankee Doodle for the broadcaster's interval signal.
I established contact at the Soviet embassy with people who spoke English and were willing to feed me important bits and pieces from their side of the wire. I had long ago, somewhat facetiously, suggested “Yankee Doodle” as our musical signal, and now that silly little jingle was a power cue, a note of hope everywhere on earth, conveyed by short wave as well as by our four-hour American BBC. When I sat down to write “Good morning, this is the Voice of America,” I now have a grasp of things.[36][37]
