Editing Yankee Doodle

{{short description|Well-known Anglo-American song}}
{{other uses}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}

{{Infobox song
| name      = Yankee Doodle
| cover     = Yankee Doodle.JPG
| alt       =
| caption   = The first verse and refrain of "Yankee Doodle", engraved on the footpath in a park
| type      =
| written   =
| published = 1755
| writer    =
| composer  =
| lyricist  =
}}
[[File:Yankee Doodle (sheet music).jpg|thumb|upright=1.1]]
{{listen
|filename=Violinist CARRIE REHKOPF-YANKEE DOODLE VARIATIONS.ogg
|title=1. Yankee Doodle Variations
|description=Performed by Carrie Rehkopf
|filename2=Yankee Doodle (choral).ogg
|title2=1. Yankee Doodle
|description2=Choral version by United States Army Chorus
|format=[[Ogg]]}}

"'''Yankee Doodle'''" is a traditional song and [[nursery rhyme]], the early versions of which predate the [[Seven Years' War]] and [[American Revolutionary War]].<ref name="abcnews">{{cite news|title='Yankee Doodle Dandy' Explained and Other Revolutionary Facts|url=https://abcnews.go.com/US/yankee-doodle-dandy-explained-revolutionary-facts/story?id=24314207/|access-date=15 July 2024|publisher=ABC News|date=4 July 2014}}</ref> It is often sung patriotically in the United States today. It is the [[List of U.S. state songs|state song]] of the [[U.S. state]] of [[Connecticut]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://portal.ct.gov/SOTS/Register-Manual/Section-X/Sites-Seals-Symbols|url-status=live|publisher=STATE OF CONNECTICUT|title=Sites º Seals º Symbols - State song|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170810210543/http://www.ct.gov/sots/cwp/view.asp?a=3188&q=392608 |archive-date=10 August 2017 }}</ref> Its [[Roud Folk Song Index]] number is 4501.

==Origin==
[[File:Philip Dawe, The Macaroni. A Real Character at the Late Masquerade (1773).jpg|thumb|upright=1.1|"The Macaroni. A real Character at the late Masquerade", a 1773 [[mezzotint]] by [[Philip Dawe]]]]
The tune of "Yankee Doodle" is thought to be much older than the lyrics, being well known across [[western Europe]], including [[England]], [[France]], the [[Netherlands]], [[Hungary]], and [[Spain]].<ref name=meaning>[[Helen Kendrick Johnson|Johnson, Helen Kendrick]]</ref> The melody of the song may have originated from an [[Music of Ireland|Irish tune]] "All the way to Galway", in which the second strain is identical to Yankee Doodle.<ref>{{cite web|author=Traditional Tune Archive |url=https://tunearch.org/wiki/Annotation:All_the_Way_to_Galway_(1) |title=All the Way to Galway (1) - Traditional Tune Archive |website=Tunearch.org |date=2020-09-23 |access-date=2021-11-25}}</ref><ref>The Meaning of Song" in ''[[The North American Review]] vol.138, no.330'' (1884): p.491. Retrieved 17 June 2016 from {{JSTOR|25118383}}</ref> There are rumors that the earliest words of "Yankee Doodle" came from a [[Middle Dutch]] harvest song which is thought to have followed the same tune, supposedly dating back as far as 15th-century Holland.<ref>[https://www.nytimes.com/1989/07/04/opinion/yankee-doodle-dandy.html Yankee Doodle Dandy], ''[[The New York Times]]''</ref><ref name=encyclo>{{cite book | last = Elson | first = Louis Charles | title = University Musical Encyclopedia: A history of music | volume = 2 | page = 82 | year = 1912}}</ref> It supposedly contained mostly [[nonsense word]]s in English and Dutch: "Yanker, didel, doodle down, Diddle, dudel, lanther, Yanke viver, voover vown, ''Botermilk'' und ''tanther''."<ref name=meaning/><ref name=immortal/><ref name=encyclo/> Farm laborers in Holland were paid "as much [[buttermilk]] (''Botermelk'') as they could drink, and a tenth (''tanther'') of the grain".<ref name=immortal>{{cite book | last = Banks | first = Louis Albert | title = Immortal Songs of Camp and Field: The Story of Their Inspiration, Together with Striking Anecdotes Connected with Their History | url = https://archive.org/details/immortalsongsca00bankgoog | publisher = Burrows Brothers Company | year = 1898 | page = [https://archive.org/details/immortalsongsca00bankgoog/page/n23 44]}}</ref><ref name=encyclo/>

The term ''Doodle'' first appeared in English in the early 17th century<ref>"doodle", n, Oxford English Dictionary; accessed April 29, 2009.</ref> and is thought to be derived from the [[Low German]] ''dudel,'' meaning "playing music badly", or ''Dödel'', meaning "fool" or "simpleton". The ''[[Macaroni (fashion)|Macaroni]]'' wig was an extreme fashion in the 1770s and became slang for being a [[fop]].<ref>J. Woodforde, ''The Strange Story of False Hair'' (London: Taylor & Francis, 1971), p. 40.</ref>  [[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".<ref>{{cite book|last1=Grose|first1=Francis|last2=Egan|first2=Pierce|title=Grose's Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue: Revised and Corrected with the Addition of Numerous Slang Phrases Collected from Tried Authorities|date=1823|location=London|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0F1GAAAAYAAJ&pg=PT8}}</ref>

The macaroni wig was an example of such [[Rococo]] dandy fashion, popular in elite circles in Western Europe and much-mocked in the London press. The term ''macaroni'' 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"<ref>''The Macaroni and Theatrical Magazine'', inaugural issue, 1772, quoted in Amelia Rauser, "Hair, Authenticity, and the Self-Made Macaroni", ''Eighteenth-Century Studies'' '''38'''.1 (2004:101-117) ([http://muse.jhu.edu/demo/eighteenth-century_studies/v038/38.1rauser.html on-line abstract]).</ref> 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.<ref>R. Ross, ''Clothing: a global history: or, The Imperialists' new clothes'' (Polity, 2008), p. 51.</ref> 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.<ref>Peter McNeil, ''That Doubtful Gender: Macaroni Dress and Male Sexualities'' (Fashion Theory, 1998), pp. 411-48.</ref>

===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>}}

==Full version==
{{Infobox artwork| image_file=Sprit of '76.2.jpeg
| title=''The Spirit of '76'' (aka ''Yankee Doodle'')
| artist=[[Archibald Willard]]
| year={{circa|1875}}
| type=Oil
| height_metric=61
| width_metric=45
| metric_unit=cm
| imperial_unit=in
| museum=United States Department of State
| italic title=no}}

The full version of the song as it is known today:<ref>Gen. George P. Morris - "Original Yankee Words", ''The Patriotic Anthology'', Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc. publishers, 1941. Introduction by Carl Van Doren. Literary Guild of America, Inc., New York, NY.</ref><ref>Penrhyn Wingfield Coussens, editor. ''Poems Children Love: A Collection of Poems Arranged for Children and Young People of Various Ages.'' Dodge Publishing Company, New York, 1908. pp. 183-5.</ref>

{{poemquote|
Yankee Doodle went to town
A-riding on a pony,
Stuck a feather in his cap
And called it [[Macaroni (fashion)|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,{{efn|Captain William Gooding of [[Dighton, Massachusetts]], commanded a militia company during the French and Indian War.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Connelley |first1=William E. |author-link1=William E. Connelley |title=A Standard History of Kansas and Kansans: Volume IV |date=1918 |publisher=Lewis Publishing Company |location=Chicago |page=2061 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=i2YUAAAAYAAJ&q=%22William+Gooding%22+%22yankee+doodle%22 |access-date=15 July 2019 |language=en}}</ref>}}
And there we saw the men and boys
As thick as [[hasty 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 [[Molasses|'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{{efn|Very large; huge.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Bartlett |first1=John Russell |author-link1=John Russell Bartlett |title=Dictionary of Americanisms, enlarged |date=1877 |publisher=Little, Brown, and Company |location=Boston |page=[https://archive.org/details/dictionaryameri01bartgoog/page/n759 684] |edition=4th |url=https://archive.org/details/dictionaryameri01bartgoog |access-date=10 September 2018 |language=en}}</ref>}} gun
Large as a log of maple,
Upon a [[:wikt:deuced|deuced]] little cart,
A load for father's cattle.

[''Chorus'']

And every time they shoot it off,
It takes a [[Powder horn|horn of powder]],
And makes a noise like father's gun,
Only a nation{{efn|A corruption of ''damnation''. Immense, enormous; very, extremely.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Bartlett |first1=John Russell |title=Dictionary of Americanisms, enlarged |date=1877 |publisher=Little, Brown, and Company|location=Boston |page=[https://archive.org/details/dictionaryameri01bartgoog/page/n478 419] |edition=4th |url=https://archive.org/details/dictionaryameri01bartgoog |access-date=10 September 2018 |language=en}}</ref> }} 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'n [[George Washington|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'']|char=|sign=|title=|source=}}

==Tune==
The tune shares with the [[English language]] [[nursery rhyme|nursery rhymes]] "[[Simple Simon (nursery rhyme)|Simple Simon]]", "[[Jack and Jill]]", and "[[Lucy Locket]]". It also inspired the theme tune for the children's television series, ''[[Barney & the Backyard Gang]]'', ''[[Barney & Friends]]'', and the 1960s US cartoon series ''[[Roger Ramjet]]''. Danish band [[Toy-Box]] sampled the tune in their song "E.T".

==Notable renditions==

The American state broadcaster [[Voice of America]] (VOA) uses the tune of Yankee Doodle as their [[interval signal]]. There is uncertainty over the origin of the VOA's decision to use the tune. In his 1990 memoir ''Being 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.

<blockquote> 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.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3d3BDF1phE|title=Voice Of America (VoA) Signature Tune (Yankee Doodle)|date=10 November 2011|via=YouTube}}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=https://bbgwatch.com/80-years-of-voa-different-names-of-the-voice-of-america/ | title=80 Years of VOA: Different Names of the Voice of America – BBG and USAGM Watch }}</ref></blockquote>

==See also==
*''[[Yankee Doodle Dandy]]'', 1942 musical film
*"[[The Yankee Doodle Boy]]", 1904 song

==Notes==
{{notelist}}

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Further reading==
* {{cite book|last=Bobrick|first=Benson|title=Angel in the Whirlwind|publisher=Simon & Schuster, New York|year=1997|isbn=978-0-684-81060-7|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/angelinwhirlwind00bobr}}

==External links==
{{Wikisource}}
*[https://www.loc.gov/teachers/lyrical/songs/yankee_doodle.html Library of Congress Yankee Doodle music website]
*[https://www.colorhexmap.com/4d5a6b #4d5a6b Hex Color - Yankee Doodle - Color Hex Map]
*[http://www.americanmusicpreservation.com/BostonYankeeDoodle.htm The Boston Yankee Doodle Ballad]
*[https://www.partitions-domaine-public.fr/pdf/11577/usa-yankee-doodle.html The free sheet music]

===Writings===
*[https://archive.org/details/reportonstarspa00sonngoog Report on "The Star-Spangled Banner," "Hail Columbia," "America," "Yankee Doodle"] by Oscar George Theodore Sonneck (1909) [https://archive.org/details/reportonthestars000689mbp 2] [https://archive.org/details/reportonthestars00sonniala 3] [https://archive.org/details/reportonstarspa00divigoog 4]
*[https://archive.org/details/famousamericanso00kobbrich Famous American songs] (1906)

===Historical audio===
*[https://archive.org/search.php?query=yankee%20doodle%20AND%20%28date%3A%5b1850%20TO%201945%5d%20OR%20collection%3A%2878rpm%29%20OR%20mediatype%3A%2878rpm%29%20OR%20collection%3Acylindertransfer%29%20AND%20mediatype%3Aaudio Yankee Doodle] (archive.org)
*[[John Hill Hewitt|John H. Hewitt]] wrote the song [http://imslp.org/wiki/The_Fall_of_Mexico_(Hewitt,_John_Hill) The Fall of Mexico] in 1847, which quotes from Yankee Doodle in measure 237.

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