A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Yankee Doodle
YANKEE DOODLE. The origin of the American national air is enveloped in almost as great obscurity as that which surrounds the authorship of 'God save the King.' Though the song is but little more than a century old, the number of different accounts of its origin which are given in American works is extremely bewildering. The most satisfactory course will therefore be to notice briefly the various existing statements on the subject, together with a few remarks on the credibility of the different theories.
1. It has been stated repeatedly in American periodicals during the past forty years that a ballad existed in England which was sung to the tune of 'Yankee Doodle,' the words of which ran—
Nankee Doodle came to town,
On a little pony,
He stuck a feather in his cap,
And called him Macaroni.
and that another ballad sung to the same tune began 'The Roundheads and the Cavaliers.' Both these songs were said to date from the time of the Rebellion, and the 'Nankee Doodle' in the former is stated to have been a nickname for Cromwell, and to have alluded to his entry into Oxford 'on a small horse with his single plume, which he wore fastened in a sort of knot, which the adherents of the royal party called "Macaroni" out of derision.'
This story is said to occur in the 'Musical Reporter' of May 1841 ('Historical Magazine,' 1857, p. 221), but whoever invented it showed a lack of antiquarian knowledge in fixing upon the period of the Civil War as the date of the song. No scholar could imagine Cromwell 'with a single white plume,' and the occurrence of the word 'Macaroni' alone points to the date of the rhyme, the term having first arisen in connection with the Macaroni Club, which flourished between 1750 and 1770. The Rev. T. Woodfall Ebsworth, undoubtedly the greatest living authority on English ballads, in reply to an enquiry addressed to him on the subject, writes as follows:—'I believe that I have seen and weighed, more or less, every such ballad still remaining in print, and most of those in MS. that search has detected: and I can declare unhesitatingly that I never came across any indication of such an anti-Cromwellian original as the apocryphal "Nankee Doodle came to town." I believe that none such is extant or ever appeared.… There is no contemporary (i.e. 1640–1660—or, say, 1648–1699) ballad specially entitled "The Roundheads and the Cavaliers," although separate rhymed poems on each class are well known to me—not songs or meant to be sung.'
2. It has not escaped notice that the nursery-rhyme,
Lucy Locket lost her pocket,
Kitty Fisher found it,
Not a bit of money in it,
Only binding round it.
which has been familiar as far back as the memories of those now living, has always been sung to the tune of 'Yankee Doodle.' This fact has been pressed into the service of what we may call the pre-Revolution theory in a very ingenious manner, principally owing to that inventive and unreliable antiquary, Dr. Rimbault. In the 'Historical Magazine' (1858, p. 214) a letter from this gentleman is printed in which he states that the tune occurs in Walsh's 'Collection of Dances for the year 1750' under the name of 'Fisher's Jig,' that Kitty Fisher was a celebrated beauty of Charles II.'s reign, whose portrait appears among Hollar's engravings of English courtesans, and that it is certain that the air is known in England as 'Kitty Fisher's Jig.' Walsh's 'Collection of Dances for the year 1750' seems unfortunately to have disappeared: there is no copy of it in the British Museum, Royal College of Music, or Euing Libraries, and though the present writer has examined many collections of dance tunes of the 18th century, no copy of 'Fisher's Jig' has turned up. The statement that Kitty Fisher lived in the reign of Charles II. is absolutely wrong. Her real name was Fischer, and she was the daughter of a German. She was for many years a reigning toast in the last century, and in 1766 was married to a Mr. Norris. She died in 1771. It would therefore have been impossible for her portrait to have been engraved by Hollar, even if he had engraved a series of portraits of English courtesans, which was not the case. It is not to be wondered at that in the face of this tissue of mis-statements we should find Lucy Locket—whose name is unmistakeably borrowed from the Beggar's Opera—described as, like Kitty Fisher, 'a well-known character in the gay world.'
3. In Littell's 'Living Age' (Boston, Aug. 1861), a story is told, on the authority of a writer in the New York 'Evening Post,' to the effect that the song is sung in Holland by German harvesters, whence it may have come to America. Unfortunately for the credibility of this account, its inventor has fitted some words to the tune which are in no known language, conclusively proving the story to be a hoax, though the Duyckincks have thought it worth reproducing in their Cyclopædia. 4. It is stated that in Burgh's 'Anecdotes of Music' (1814), the air of 'Yankee Doodle' is said to occur in J. C. Smith's 'Ulysses'—a statement we have been unable to verify, as no copy of that opera is accessible.
5. A writer in 'All the Year Round' (Feb. 1870) alleges that T. Moncrieff had traced the air to a fife-major of the Grenadier Guards, who composed it as a march in the last century. It is most probable that the air was originally a military quick-step, but this account of its authorship is too vague to be accepted implicitly.
6. In Admiral Preble's 'History of the Flag of the United States,' it is stated that the tune occurs in an opera of Arne's to the words 'Did little Dickey ever trick ye?' This is an error: the song in question is in Arnold's 'Two to One' (1784), and there the tune is called 'Yankee Doodle.' As this is probably the earliest instance of its appearance in print, it is given below, the words of the song being omitted.
7. Passing by the fanciful opinions that 'Yankee Doodle' is of Spanish or Hungarian origin, we come to the traditional account of its origin, which agrees with what may be gathered from the above accounts, viz. that the tune is of English origin and not older than the middle of the last century. The Boston 'Journal of the Times' for September 1768 is said to contain the earliest mention of it, in the following paragraph (quoted in the 'Historical Magazine' for 1857):—'The [British] fleet was brought to anchor near Castle William; that night … those passing in boats observed great rejoicings, and that the Yankee Doodle song was the capital piece in the band of music.' It is only a few years before this that the traditional account places the origin of the song. In 1755, during the French and Indian war, General Amherst had under his command an army of regular and provincial troops. Among the former was a Dr. Schuckburgh (whose commission as surgeon is dated June 25, 1737), to whom the tune is traditionally ascribed, though it seems more probable that he was only the author of the words. It is said that 'the fantastic appearance of the colonial contingent, with their variegated, ill-fitting, and incomplete uniforms,' was a continual butt for the humour of the regular troops, and that Dr. Schuckburgh recommended the tune to the colonial officers 'as one of the most celebrated airs of martial musick. The joke took, to the no small amusement of the British corps. Brother Jonathan exclaimed that it was "'nation fine," and in a few days nothing was heard in the provincial camp but the air of Yankee Doodle.' This account is said to have appeared in the 'Albany Statesman' early in the present century; it is also to be found in vol. iii. of the 'New Hampshire Collections, Historical and Miscellaneous' (1824). The words evidently date from about the year 1755. The original name of the song is 'The Yankee's Return from Camp,' and it begins:—
Father and I went down to camp,
Along with Captain Gooding;
There we see the men and boys
As thick as hasty-pudding.
The author of the account of the song in the 'New Hampshire Collections' quotes a version printed about 1790, and there are several others extant, though even in 1824 it is said that the burlesque song was passing into oblivion. It is noticeable that in the later versions of the song the early notices of 'Captain Washington' are replaced by the following:—
And there was Captain Washington,
And gentlefolks about him;
They say he's grown so 'tarnal proud,
He will not ride without 'em.
The tune itself seems also to have suffered several changes. Mr. A. W. Thayer has kindly favoured us with the following version as it was sung sixty years since, and as it has been handed down by tradition in his family from revolutionary times:—
In spite of various attempts to dislodge it, 'Yankee Doodle' remains the national air of the United States. As a melody it has little beyond simplicity in its favour, but there is a quaint direct and incisive character about it which redeems it from vulgarity, beside which the historical associations of the tune, connected as it is with the establishment of American Independence, should have saved it from some of the criticisms to which it has been subjected. In the words of the Hon. Stephen Salisbury, 'Yankee Doodle is national property, but it is not a treasure of the highest value. It has some antiquarian claims for which its friends do not care. It cannot be disowned, and it will not be disused. In its own words,
It suits for feasts, it suits for fun,
And just as well for fighting.
- ↑ Address delivered before the American Antiquarian Society, Oct. 20, 1872. The writer of the above article is greatly indebted for assistance kindly rendered by the Hon. Robert C. Winthrop, Mr. Clement K. Fay, and Mr. A. W. Thayer.