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This version of the song seems almost identical with the one from the Columbia manuscript,
A Collection of Dancing Tunes, Marches & Song Tunes.
Manuscript, 36 leaves, ca. 1778-1788
Known as the "Whittier Perkins" manuscript because of the ownership inscription, the volume, in a contemporary leather binding, contains
more than two hundred tunes from the American Revolutionary War era, scored for melodic instrument. Many of the melodies are of English
origin, but the spirit of the times is reflected in the titles given to the tunes, such as "The Free Born Americans" and "Washinton's [sic] Health."
The most famous piece in the collection is "Yankey doodle," which appears here in its earliest known American form. In addition, the manuscript
contains such well-known songs as "The 12 days of Christmas" and "Green Sleeves."
YANKEE DOODLE
Sylvia G.L. Dannett, The Yankee Doodler, Music, Theater and Fun in the American Revolution:
Our Yankee Doodle is said to have its origins when in 1755, New England troops joining Braddock's forces at Niagara appeared wearing a motley
assortment of clothing from buckskins and furs to uniforms that were "some quaint old-fashioned military heirloom of a century past". A British
army surgeon named Dr. Richard Schuckburg, recalling the old song ridiculing Cromwell, wrote new words poking fun at the New England
troops, changing "Nankey" into "Yankey". It caught on with the Americans, who added more stanzas, and soldiers were said to have whistled it
with such 'mocking vim' that Cornwallis supposedly exclaimed, "I hope to God I shall never hear that damned tune again." In the play The
Contrast, the Yankee character Jonathan boasts that although he only knows 190 verses of Yankee Doodle, his sister Tabitha can sing them all.
The tune was well enough known that in another play, The Disappointment, or The Force of Credulity, written in 1767, one of the tunes is
Yankee Doodle. The play is about a then current mania of searching for Blackbeard's buried treasure, and is sung by an old Dutchman, "O! How
joyful shall I be, When I get de money. I will bring it all to dee; O! my diddling honey."
The tune made good martial music, and in 1768 when British troops arrived in Boston Harbor, Yankee Doodle was said to have been one of the
most popular pieces of band music. There are several political songs of the era set to the tune, from Adam's Fall: The Trip to Cambridge; The
Recess; The Dance; and "Yankee Doodle, or (as now Christened by the Saints of New England) The Lexington March - N.B. The words to be sung
thro the Nose, & in the West Country drawl & dialect." The first verse of the song The Recess (1779) dismally reminds us how little things change:
"And now our Senators are gone, To take their leave of London, To mourn how little they have done, How much they have left undone!" The
Dance version of 1781 appeared soon after the defeat and capture of Cornwallis, and began: "Cornwallis led a country dance, The like was never
seen, sir, Much retrograde and much advance, And all with General Greene, sir."
There is a country dance to Yankee Doodle, and Captain George Bush wrote it out in his personal notebook of fiddle tune, copied from a now lost
fife tutor printed in 1776 in Philadelphia, the first evidence we have for an American printing before 1794. Otherwise, one of the earliest known
printed versions available was in James Aird's "Selections of Scotch, English, Irish and Foreign Airs", published in Glasgow in 1782.
Father and I went down to camp
Along with Captain Gooding
And there we saw the men and boys
As thick as hasty pudding.
Chorus
Yankee doodle, keep it up
Yankee doodle dandy
Mind the music and the step
And with the girls be handy.
There was Captain Washington
Upon a slapping stallion
A-giving orders to his men
I guess there was a million.
Chorus
And then the feathers on his hat
They looked so' tarnal fin-a
I wanted pockily to get
To give to my Jemima.
Chorus
And then we saw a swamping gun
Large as a log of maple
Upon a deuced little cart
A load for father's cattle.
Chorus
And every time they shoot it off
It takes a horn of powder
It makes a noise like father's gun
Only a nation louder.
Chorus
I went as nigh to one myself
As' Siah's underpinning
And father went as nigh agin
I thought the deuce was in him.
We saw a little barrel, too
The heads were made of leather
They knocked upon it with little clubs
And called the folks together.
Chorus
And there they'd fife away like fun
And play on cornstalk fiddles
And some had ribbons red as blood
All bound around their middles.
The troopers, too, would gallop up
And fire right in our faces
It scared me almost to death
To see them run such races.
Chorus
Uncle Sam came there to change
Some pancakes and some onions
For' lasses cake to carry home
To give his wife and young ones.
Chorus
But I can't tell half I see
They kept up such a smother
So I took my hat off, made a bow
And scampered home to mother.
Chorus
Cousin Simon grew so bold
I thought he would have cocked it
It scared me so I streaked it off
And hung by father's pocket.
Chorus
And there I saw a pumpkin shell
As big as mother's basin
And every time they touched it off
They scampered like the nation.
Other Verses:
And there was Captain Washington,
With gentlefolks about him,
They say he's gown so 'tarnal proud
He will not ride without them.
Chorus
There came Gen'ral Washington
Upon a snow-white charger
He looked as big as all outdoors
And thought that he was larger.
Chorus
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Mozart transcription by Mary Van Deusen, Corrections by Mary Jane Corry
Copyright © 2003, InterMedia Enterprises
