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Yankee Doodle DandyHistory | Lyrics | Richard Shuckburgh / More InformationRichard Shuckburgh / More InformationThe song's origins were in a pre-United States Revolutionary War song originally sung by British military officers to mock the disheveled, unorganized colonial "Yankees" with whom they served in the French and Indian War. It is believed that the tune comes from the nursery rhyme Lucy Locket. One version of the Yankee Doodle lyrics are attributed to Doctor Richard Shuckburgh, a British Army surgeon. The Boston Journal of the Times wrote about a British band declaring "that Yankee Doodle song was the Capital Piece of their band music." The earliest known version of the lyrics comes from 1775: Brother Ephraim sold his Cow But when Ephraim he came home During the Revolutionary War, the Americans embraced the song and made it their own, turning it back on those who had used it to mock them. A newspaper account 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,-- 'D--n 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, Father and I went down to camp, Yankee Doodle keep it up, There was Captain Washington Yankee Doodle &c. Yankee Doodle &c. Yankee Doodle &c. During the American Civil War, Southerners added some new lines of their own: Yankee Doodle had a mind Yankee Doodle, fa, so la, Many other variations and parodies have since arisen, including the one taught to schoolchildren today: Yankee Doodle went to town Some believe that this was one of the first alternative lyrics by the english army during the revolutionary war. Macaroni was a very nice club in London at the time, London being the town that the Yankee came to. The joke being that the Yankees are stupid enough to believe that a feather in the hat is sufficiently spiffy to gain entry to Macaroni. The word macaroni meant "dandy", or "fop", or "dude" at the time. And the following anonymous junior-high school campus parody: Yankee Doodle went to London The tune has become synonymous with the United States. The Voice of America begins all broadcasts and ends all broadcasts with the interval signal of "Yankee Doodle". |
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