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Yankee Doodle
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"Yankee Doodle" is a well-known British song the origin of which dates back to the Seven Years War. It has been widely adopted in the United States and is often sung patriotically today. It is the state anthem of Connecticut.
The first verse and refrain, as often sung today, run thus:
- Yankee Doodle went to town,
- A-Riding on a pony;
- He stuck a feather in his cap,
- And called it macaroni.
song's origins were in a pre-Revolutionary War song originally by British military officers to mock the disheveled, disorganized colonial "Yankees" with whom they served in the French and Indian War.
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Encyclopedia
"Yankee Doodle" is a well-known British song the origin of which dates back to the Seven Years War. It has been widely adopted in the United States and is often sung patriotically today. It is the state anthem of Connecticut.
The first verse and refrain, as often sung today, run thus:
- Yankee Doodle went to town,
- A-Riding on a pony;
- He stuck a feather in his cap,
- And called it macaroni.
History and lyrics
The song's origins were in a pre-Revolutionary War song originally by British military officers to mock the disheveled, disorganized colonial "Yankees" with whom they served in the French and Indian War. The word doodle first appeared in the early seventeenth century to mean a fool or simpleton, and is thought to derive from the Low German dudel or dödel, meaning "fool" or "simpleton". It is believed that the tune comes from the nursery rhyme Lucy Locket. The mention of 'Macaroni' is a reference to an over the top sense of fashion and the men who took part in it, who were often referred to as the "Macaroni Club". One version of the Yankee Doodle lyrics is attributed to Doctor Richard Shuckburgh, a British Army surgeon, who wrote the song after witnessing the unprofessional appearance of Colonel Thomas Fitch, Jr., the son of Connecticut Governor Thomas Fitch, who arrived in Albany in 1755 with the Connecticut militia.
The Boston Journal of the Times wrote about a British band declaring "that Yankee Doodle song was the Capital Piece of their band music."
Early versions
The earliest known version of the lyrics comes from 1755 or 1758, as the date of origin is disputed ("Yankee Doodle Turns 250—Maybe", Associated Press, 4 July 2008):
- Brother Ephraim sold his Cow
- And bought 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 devour'd.
(Note that the sheet music which accompanies these lyrics reads, "The Words to be Sung through the Nose, & in the West Country drawl & dialect.")
The Ephraim referenced here was Ephraim Williams, a popularly known Colonel in the Massachusetts militia who was killed in the Battle of Lake George. He left his land and property to the founding of a school in Western Massachusetts, now known as Williams College.
The tune also appeared in 1762, in one of America's first comic operas, The Disappointment, with bawdy lyrics about the search for Blackbeard's buried treasure by a team from Philadelphia.
It has been reported that the British often marched to a version believed to be about a man named Thomas Ditson, of Billerica, Massachusetts. Ditson was tarred and feathered for attempting to buy a musket in Boston in March 1775, although he later fought at Concord:
Yankee Doodle came to town,For to buy a firelock,We will tar and feather him,And so we will John Hancock.
For this reason, the town of Billerica claims to be the "home" of Yankee Doodle, and claims that at this point the Americans embraced the song and made it their own, turning it back on those who had used it to mock them. After the Battle 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 British responded with another set of lyrics following the Battle of Bunker Hill:
- The seventeen 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.
Also on February 6, 1788. Massachusetts ratified the Constitution by a vote of 186 to 168. To the ringing of bells and the booming of cannons, the delegates trooped out of Brattle Street Church. Before many days had passed, the citizens sang their convention song to the tune of "Yankee Doodle." Here are the lyrics to their song...
- The vention did in Boston meet,
- The State House could not hold 'em
- So then they went to Fed'ral Street,
- And there the truth was told 'em...
- And ev'ry morning went to prayer,
- And then began disputing,
- Till oppositions silenced were,
- By arguments refuting.
- Now politicians of all kinds,
- Who are not yet decided,
- May see how Yankees speak their minds,
- And yet are not divided.
- So here I end my Fed'ral song,
- Composed of thirteen verses;
- May agriculture flourish long
- And commerce fill our purses!
Full version
A full version of the song, as it is known today, goes:
- Fath'r and I went down to camp,
- Along with Cap'n Goodin',
- And there we saw the men and boys
- As thick as hasty puddin'.
- CHORUS:
- Yankee Doodle keep it up,
- Yankee Doodle dandy,
- Mind the music and the step,
- And with the girls be handy.
- And there we saw a thousand men
- As rich as Squire David,
- And what they wasted every day,
- I wish it could be saved.
- CHORUS
- The 'lasses they eat it every day,
- Would keep a house a winter;
- They have so much, that I'll be bound,
- They eat it when they've mind ter.
- CHORUS
- And there I see a swamping gun
- Large as a log of maple,
- Upon a deuced little cart,
- A load for father's cattle.
- CHORUS
- And every time they shoot it off,
- It takes a horn of powder,
- and makes a noise like father's gun,
- Only a nation louder.
- CHORUS
- I went as nigh to one myself
- As 'Siah's inderpinning;
- 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 bason,
- 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'n Washington,
- 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
- Gen. George P. Morris
Civil war
During the American Civil War, Southerners added some new lines of their own:
- Yankee Doodle went to town
- A-riding on a pony
- Stuck a feather in his hat
- And called it macaroni.
- CHORUS:
- Yankee Doodle, keep it up
- Yankee Doodle dandy
- Mind the music and the step
- And with the girls be handy.
- Father and I went down to camp
- Along with Captain Gooding
- And there we saw the men and boys
- As thick as hasty pudding.
- CHORUS
- There was Captain Washington
- Upon a slapping stallion
- A-giving orders to his men
- I guess there was a million.
- CHORUS
Variations and parodies
Many other variations and parodies have since arisen, including the one taught to schoolchildren today:
- Yankee Doodle went to town
- A-riding on a pony
- He stuck a feather in his hat
- And called it macaroni
- Yankee Doodle, keep it up
- Yankee Doodle dandy
- Yankee Doodle round the world
- As sweet as sugar candy
or
- Yankee Doodle went to town
- A-riding on a pony
- He stuck a feather in his hat
- And called it macaroni
- Yankee Doodle, keep it up
- Yankee Doodle dandy
- Mind the music and the step
- and with the girls be handy!
Some believe that these were alternative lyrics used by the British army during the revolutionary war. A "macaroni", in the mid-18th-century, was a fashionable person; the joke being that the Yankees believed that a feather in the hat was sufficient to make them the height of fashion. Whether or not these were alternative lyrics sung in the British army, they were enthusiastically taken up by the Yanks themselves.
In the 1930s jazz vocalist Billie Holiday sung her own parodical version of the song, which began:
- Yankee Doodle never went to town
- I've just discovered the story was phony
- Let me give you all the real low-down
- He didn’t even own a pony
A more modern parody version:
- Yankee Doodle went to London riding on a turtle
- Turned the corner just in time to see a lady's girdle!
- Yankee Doodle went to town riding on a baby
- He accidentally turned around and saw a naked lady
Media
Popular culture
- The Voice of America begins and ends all broadcasts with the interval signal of "Yankee Doodle".
- The Spirit of '76 (previously known as Yankee Doodle) is the most famous painting by Archibald MacNeal Willard.
- A variation of the song appears in the 1904 musical Little Johnny Jones by George M. Cohan.
- The song featured in a famous sequence in the 1942 James Cagney film, Yankee Doodle Dandy.
- This song's title was used as a title for the 1943 Tom and Jerry cartoon The Yankee Doodle Mouse.
- In the 1952 Tom and Jerry cartoon Little Runaway, Tom is disguised as a seal but is captured. He is then forced to play "Yankee Doodle" on the horns at the circus.
- The theme songs of the 1960s TV cartoon series Roger Ramjet and the children's TV show Barney and the Backyard Gang & Barney & Friends are sung to the tune of Yankee Doodle. The kids on Roger Ramjet are named Yank, Doodle, Dan, and Dee. The original was also sung on Barney & Friends in the 1992 episode Alphabet Soup.
- One sketch in a 1970s episode of Sesame Street features Kermit the Frog reporting on Don Music's attempt to "write" Yankee Doodle, with both finding special trouble with the line "and called it macaroni".
- A 1990's commercial for the popular Magna Doodle toy was released and was sung to the tune of Yankee Doodle.
- In the musical Paint Your Wagon, the "Shivaree" concerning Ben Rumson's impending arranged marriage inspired a variation.
- In America Sings, a Disneyland attraction made for the American Bicentennial, "Yankee Doodle" (with new lyrics) acts as a transition song between each scene with these lyrics, sung by a Bald Eagle named Sam, voiced by Burl Ives.
- At the conclusion of the 1981 Wimbledon Championships, in which American tennis star John McEnroe had defeated his long-time rival Björn Borg, TV commentator Bud Collins took note of the July 4th holiday and also McEnroe's red-white-and-blue attire, and quipped "Stick a feather in his cap and call him 'McEnroe-ni'!"
- In the 9th episode of season 2 of Country Fried Home Videos on CMT "" is shown playing the song on "The Hands".
- On The Alvin Show episode with the song "Yankee Doodle," Alvin sings the last line as "and called it spaghetti."
- Ned Land, a character from the book Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, is said to have whistled the song.
- Henri Vieuxtemps, a violinist-composer, wrote 'Souvenir D'Amerique "Yankee Doodle"', Variations Burlesques for Violin and Piano.
- Sung on Full House on the episode The Play's The Thing in which Michelle tries out for the part of Yankee Doodle in her first grade play.
- A short instrumental clip featured in the "Baby June And Her News Boys" number in the stage musical "Gypsy".
Versions in other languages
Bengali lyrics
The song Laal jhuti kakatua (Bangla: ??? ???? ?????????), set to the Yankee Doodle/Lucy Locket melody, is a favorite among the Bengali people. It goes:
| Bengali lyrics | English translation |
|---|
??? ???? ?????????
????? ?? ??????
??? ??? ??? ????
?????? ?? ????? |
A red-tufted cockatoo
has a whim
She wants her red ribbon
comb and mirror.
|
The Bengali Version of Yankee Doodle was composed for the Film "Badshah" in the year 1964.
The song was sang By Ranu Mukherjee, daughter of famous Bengali singer Hemanta Mukherjee.
See also
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