![]() Kitty Fisher (1738-1767) was an infamous London courtesan who gained celebrity through high-profile affairs starting in 1756. Lucy Locket was a proverbial whore who appears in John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera (1728). The words to the jig are preserved in the nursery rhyme "Lucy Locket" (Sonneck 100-101): In his 1909 Report for the Library of Congress, Oscar Sonneck traces the tune of "Yankee Doodle" to an English folk melody used for the popular "Kitty Fisher’s Jig" in New England twenty years before the Revolution. Lucy Locket, Dolly Bushel’s Fart, and Oliver Cromwell ![]() Even today, websites on "Yankee Doodle" are littered with misinformation and misinterpretations, some from the 1800s. If the 19 th-century schoolmarm understood the 18 th-century origins of the song, the cultural allusions, the etymologies, and the first-person voice ( Father and I), she would have been shocked at what her pupils were singing ( keep it up. Everyone still sensed the spirit and the satire, but some of the old words ( doodle, dandy, macaroni) and references ( Captain Gooding, hasty pudding) had become obscure. New stanzas were invented, and original pre-Revolution and Revolution-era stanzas were forgotten, or their meanings lost. 1775-1785 (Lemay 453):Įvery schoolboy knew the chorus, first printed in 1767 (Barton 54-55):Įvery schoolboy enjoyed singing the seemingly silly "standard stanza" that "probably dates from the vogue of the macaroni in the early 1770s" and that became the most popular verse, but not printed until 1842 (Lemay 439):Īfter the Revolution, "Yankee Doodle" continued to be expanded and parodied. When Willard painted this picture, every schoolboy knew the familiar (but not first) first verse from the "Visit to the Camp" version of "Yankee Doodle," printed c. Yankee Doodle by Archibald MacNeal Willard (c. Archibald Willard’s iconographic, cartoonish image, painted for the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition, captures this spirit (Figure 1).įigure 1. It is our nation’s birthsong, our entrance music, our primal refrain, our song of ourselves before Walt Whitman’s barbaric yawp. It accompanied the shot heard round the world and the day George III’s empire was turned on its ear. "Yankee Doodle" became an expression of patriotic pride, national humor, and the Spirit of ’76. On October 19, 1781, during Cornwallis’s surrender at Yorktown, Washington’s army and his French allies were still playing "Yankee Doodle," while the shocked British played "The World Turned Upside Down." They had "learned to appreciate the true spirit of this American folk song, which portrays the Americans as cowards, yokels, and naifs, or which makes sexual jokes, or describes typical American holidays" (Lemay 461). ![]() "Yankee Doodle" became the unofficial national anthem. Upon their return to Boston, one 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 metaphor of the Americans making the English dance to the song in retreat was instantly a popular satire. By the end of the day, with the Regulars in full retreat, Ditson and the Americans were the ones singing "Yankee Doodle." According to the May 20, 1775, Massachusetts Spy, "When the second brigade marched out of Boston to reinforce the first, nothing was played by the fifes and drums but Yankee Doodle. On April 19, 1775, as British Regulars under General Hugh Percy marched out of Boston to reinforce those under fire from Lexington to Concord, they taunted the rag-tag Minutemen by playing "Yankee Doodle."Īmong the Minutemen was Thomas Ditson, who had been tarred and feathered by British soldiers a month earlier and paraded through Boston to the song. See also: Yankee Doodle Dandy A Song, a Shot, and a Shock Yankee Doodle Yankee Doodle and the Country Dance from Lexington to Yorktownīy Raymond F.
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