Editing Yankee Doodle (section)

===Early versions===
The song was a pre-[[American Revolutionary War|Revolutionary War]] song originally sung by British military officers to mock the disheveled, disorganized colonial "[[Yankee]]s" with whom they served in the [[French and Indian War]]. It was written at [[Fort Crailo]] around 1755 by [[British soldiers in the eighteenth century|British Army]] surgeon Richard Shuckburgh while campaigning in [[Rensselaer, New York]].<ref name=Etymol /> The British troops sang it to mock their stereotype of the American soldier as a Yankee simpleton who thought that he was stylish if he simply stuck a feather in his cap.<ref name="abcnews"/> It was also popular among the Americans as a song of defiance,<ref name="abcnews"/> and they added verses to it that mocked the British and hailed [[George Washington]] as the Commander of the Continental army. By 1781, "Yankee Doodle" had turned from being an insult to being a song of national pride.<ref name="congress">{{cite web|title=Historical Period: The American Revolution, 1763-1783 - Lyrical legacy - Yankee doodle song|url=https://www.loc.gov/teachers/lyrical/songs/yankee_doodle.html|website=Loc.gov|access-date=May 6, 2016}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |editor-last=Lomax |editor-first=John Avery |last=Lomax |first=Alan |title=American ballads and f-28276-3|page=521 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Dn0cSe2ecuoC|isbn=9780486282763 |year=1994 |publisher=Courier Corporation }}</ref>

According to one account, Shuckburgh wrote the original lyrics after seeing the appearance of Colonial troops under Colonel [[Thomas Fitch, V|Thomas Fitch]], the son of Connecticut Governor [[Thomas Fitch (governor)|Thomas Fitch]].<ref name="SSBHCYD">{{Cite book|last=Sonneck|first=Oscar George Theodore|author-link=Oscar George Theodore Sonneck|title=Report on The Star-spangled Banner, Hail Columbia, America, Yankee Doodle|publisher=New York, Dover Publications [1972]|isbn=978-0-486-22237-0|year=1972}}</ref> According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, "the current version seems to have been written in 1776 by Edward Bangs, a [[Harvard University|Harvard]] sophomore who also was a [[Minutemen|Minuteman]]."<ref name=Etymol>{{cite encyclopedia |url=https://www.etymonline.com/word/Yankee%20Doodle#etymonline_v_24684|title=Yankee Doodle |dictionary=Online Etymology Dictionary |access-date=October 5, 2018 }}</ref> He wrote a ballad with 15 verses which circulated in [[Boston]] and surrounding towns in 1775 or 1776.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.americanmusicpreservation.com/BostonYankeeDoodle.htm|title=Boston Yankee Doodle Ballad - "Father And I Went Down To Camp"|website=www.americanmusicpreservation.com}}</ref>

A bill was introduced to the House of Representatives on July 25, 1999,<ref>{{cite act |url=https://www.congress.gov/bill/106th-congress/house-concurrent-resolution/143 |title=Expressing the sense of Congress that Billerica, Massachusetts, should be recognized as "America's Yankee Doodle Town" |date=June 25, 1999 |type=H. CON. RES. |index=143}}</ref> recognizing [[Billerica, Massachusetts]], as "America's Yankee Doodle Town". After the [[Battle of Lexington and Concord]], a Boston newspaper reported:

{{blockquote|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):<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/news/stories/2008/07/05/yankeedoodle.html?cxntlid=inform_sr|title=Dandy new theory suggests 'Yankee Doodle' is now 250|last=Carola|first=Chris|date=July 5, 2008|newspaper=Atlanta Journal-Constitution|agency=Associated Press|access-date=September 10, 2009 |url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110629101536/http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/news/stories/2008/07/05/yankeedoodle.html?cxntlid=inform_sr|archive-date=June 29, 2011}}</ref>

{{poemquote|
Brother Ephraim sold his Cow
And [[Purchase of commissions in the British Army|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 devoured.}}

The sheet music which accompanies these lyrics reads, "The Words to be Sung through the Nose, & in the [[West Country English|West Country drawl & dialect]]." 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.<ref>Bobrick, 148</ref> An alternate verse that the British are said to have marched to is attributed to an incident involving Thomas Ditson of [[Billerica, Massachusetts]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.billericalibrary.org/thomas-ditson.html|title=Thomas Ditson|website=Billerica Public Library|access-date=2016-12-27|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161228034436/http://www.billericalibrary.org/thomas-ditson.html|archive-date=2016-12-28}}</ref> Ditson attempted to purchase a [[Brown Bess]] musket from a British soldier in the [[47th (Lancashire) Regiment of Foot|47th Regiment of Foot]] in Boston in March 1775; after a group of the soldier's comrades spotted the transaction as it was occurring, they [[Tarring and feathering|tarred 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.<ref>{{cite web |first1=Dick |last1=Hawes |first2=Bill |last2=Brimer |title=Yankee Doodle Story |url=https://bcmm.us/yankee-doodle-story/ |website=Billerica Colonial Minute Men |access-date=September 2, 2018 |location=The Thomas Ditson Story |date=August 16, 2017}}</ref> For this reason, the town of Billerica is called the home of "Yankee Doodle":<ref>[http://www.bcmm.us/yankee_doodle.htm The Billerica Colonial Minute Men; ''The Thomas Ditson story'']; retrieved January 31, 2013.</ref><ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20090626220816/http://www.billericalibrary.org/main/genealogy/yankee.htm ''Town History and Genealogy'']; Web.archive.org, retrieved October 20, 2008.</ref>

{{poemquote|
Yankee Doodle came to town,
For to buy a firelock,
We will tar and feather him,
And so we will [[John Hancock]].}}

Another pro-British set of lyrics believed to have used the tune was published in June 1775 following the [[Battle of Bunker Hill]]:<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1870/whats-the-song-yankee-doodle-all-about|title=What's the song 'Yankee Doodle' all about?|date=January 4, 2001 |website=[[The Straight Dope]]|access-date=August 31, 2016 }}</ref>

{{poemquote|
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 at [[Saratoga campaign#Surrender|Saratoga]] in 1777.<ref>{{cite book|last=Luzader|first=John F.|title=Saratoga: A Military History of the Decisive Campaign of the American Revolution|year=2008|publisher=Savas Beatie|location=New York |isbn=978-1-932714-44-9|page=335}}</ref> A variant is preserved in the 1810 edition of ''[[Gammer Gurton's Garland]]: Or, The Nursery Parnassus'', collected by [[Francis Douce]], now in the [[Bodleian Library]], Oxford:

{{poemquote|
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.<ref>''Gammer Gurton's Garland: Or, The Nursery Parnassus'', collected by Francis Douce, London: R[obert] Triphook, 1810, p. 35. See in [https://hdl.handle.net/2027/nyp.33433082297239?urlappend=%3Bseq=43 HathiTrust].</ref>}}