Subject: RE: Yankee Doodle
From:
Bruce O.
Date: 20 Nov 97 - 04:34 PM
Here's a little about the song, assuming you want real facts instead of the usual romantic nonsense. Unfortunately, I've never collected together my various notes and tidbits gathered over the years in one place.
There are good notes scattered around various places. There is also a lot of pure crap, as for the 'Kitty Fisher' bit noted below, and probably the 'Lucy Locket' connection, also.
See factual discusion and fascimile copy of an American broadside copy of c 1775, "The Yankey's return from Camp", in 'Music in Colonial Massachusetts', II, p. 727, (Fig. 378) 1985. For other discussion of the song and tune see "Yankee Doodle" in the index to vol. I of the same work, 1980. This text has 15 verses of which 8 are more or less the same as the version in DT [I heartily recommend this work for a picture of song, dance and music in early America, with many early examples from rare printed works and manuscripts.]
I've misplaced my reference to an article by Frank Kidson, c 1915, in a journal, [Musical Quarterly?] that I once dug up in the Library of Congress. In it he suggested the 'doodle' came from 'diddling' or mouth music.
Also misplaced is my copy of a statement by a character in Royal Tyler's play 'The Contrast',N. Y., 1787 (first production date. Publication was about 1790. George Washington saw the production in Baltimore in 1788 or 89, and subscribed to purchase the printed edition, and the copy he got is the only one now known.) In the play one of the characters says, approximately, that he only knows 160 verses of "Yankee Doodle", but his Grannam knows them all. The earliest known published copy of the tune known is in the first volume of James Aird's 'A Selection of Scotch, English, Irish and Foreign Airs', (I) p. 36, c 1778 (reissued 1782 with vol II). The tune is also in Dr. Samuel Arnold's 'Music... for Two to One', 1784. [G. Colman's play, whose compete text was published the following year.]
J. Rimbault in the 19th century said that "Yankee Doodle" was printed under the title "Fisher's Jig" in J. Walsh's 'Twenty four Country Dances for the Year 1750'. One book of American historical songs in my local library expands on this, saying that verses were sung in Cromwell's time (c 1650) and the tune was written in honor of Kitty Fisher. Kitty Fisher's time was the 1750's, not the 1650's. If the author had checked Walsh's dance collection he would have seen that there was no "Fisher's Jig" in it, nor any other tune in the collection with the slightest resemblance to "Yankee Doodle". [Copy of Walsh's Dances for 1750 in Library of Congress.]
One work by a reliable scholar that I haven't seen is Oscar George Theodore Sonneck, 'Report on "The Star Spangled Banner," "Hail Columbia," "America," "Yankee Doodle"' (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1909.) Sonneck was Chief of the Music Division of the Library of Congress. Search the web for more on Sonneck. [After Wm. Grattan-Flood came up with some more nonsense about the origin of "To Anacreon in Heaven" (Star Spangled Banner tune) Sonneck issued another report on the latter in 1914.]
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