The old "Doodle" seems to have picked up creative lyrics as it went along like a Bassett Hound picks up fleas.

That Boston Cameratta version on their album "Liberty Tree" is a doozy; those lyrics are a little "naughty", and it is sung to the older of at least two distinct variations of the tune.

In the 3rd Maine Fife & Drum Corps, we do a set featuring both the "Old" or Revolutionalry War era "Yankee Doodle" as well as the "New" tune which seems to have evolved some time around or after 1812, and is the one most familiar to us today. The Old is keyed in "G" and features a slower cadence, while the New is in "D" and a little faster.

When performing as a "set piece" we often play "Doodle 3 ways"; a medley featuring the stately "Old Doodle", followed by the more vigorous "New (Civil War era) Doodle", and lastly our Drum-Major's jazzed-up arrangement that sounds a bit like "Pop Goes the Weasle", but with the snares and thundering Bass-Drum (which in Ancient Rudimental Drumming plays all of the beats that the Snares do, but often in counterpoint or syncopation)it really "rocks"!