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From: "Jean Rice" <>
Subject: [IGW] More on American Revolution -- History of "Yankee Doodle" - Per English, "best sung through the nose"
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2003 11:41:22 -0700

SNIPPET: The first version of "Yankee Doodle" seems to have been written by a British army physician, Dr. Richard SCHUCKBERG, during the French and Indian War. It was a satiric look at New England's Yankees.

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 devoured.

Sheep's head and vinegar
Buttermilk and tansy
Boston is a Yankee town
Sing "Hey, doodle dandy!"

The song continued for many more verses, several of them scatological or with a tendency to be obscene. With different verses, it soon became popular throughout the colonies. A broadside of the 1770s has a version which became more or less standard. It is a country bumpkin's reaction to his first visit to an army camp.

Father and I went
down to camp
Along with Captain Goodwin
And there we saw the
men and boys
As thick as hasty puddin'.

And there they had a little keg
The heads were made
of leather
They rap't upon't with
little clubs
To call the folks together.

There I saw a swamping gun
As big's a log of maple,
Put upon two little wheels
A load for father's cattle.

I saw a man a'talking there
You might heard to
the barn, sir,
Halooing and scolding too --
The deal of one would answer.

There he kept a riding round
Upon a spanking stallion.
And all the people
standing round,
A thousand or a million.

Another version was published in England in 1775 with the recommendation that it be "sung through the nose," suggesting that it was still a satire on Yankees. Later in 1775, a minuteman named Edward BANGS published a version that might have been sung by a boy visiting the New England army besieging Boston. One verse suggested Yankee wariness of the Virginia commander.

And there was Captain
Washington
And gentle folks about him;
They say he's grown so
tarnal proud
He will not ride
without them.

By this time it was obvious that anyone could write verses for "Yanke Doodle." On the march to Lexington and Concord, according to one story, the British troops sang this stanza.

Yankee Doodle's come to town
for to buy a firelock,
We will tar and feather him
And so will we John Hancock.

The verse the American soldiers liked best summed up "Yankee Doodle's" popularity.

Yankee Doodle is the tune
that we all delight in;
It suits for feasts,
it suits for fun,
And just as well for fightin.'

-- Excerpt, "Liberty! The American Revolution," Thomas Fleming (1997)

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• [IGW] More on American Revolution -- History of "Yankee Doodle" - Per English, "best sung through the nose" by "Jean Rice" <>