Yankee Doodle is a pre-United States Revolutionary War song originally sung by British military officers to mock the disheveled, unorganized colonial "Yankees" with whom they served in the French and Indian War. It is believed that the tune comes from the nursery rhyme Lucy Locket. The Yankee Doodle lyrics are attributed to Docter Richard Shuckburgh, a British Army surgeon.
Feeling superior to the colonials, the British made the song popular among themselves. The Boston Journal of the Times wrote about a British band that "that Yankee Doodle song was the Capital Piece of their band music."
The earliest known version of the lyrics comes from 1775:
During the Revolutionary War, the Americans embraced the song and made it their own, turning it back on those who had used it to mock them. A newspaper account after the Battle of Lexington and Concord, a Boston nespaper reported, "Upon their return to Boston [pursued by the Minutemen], one [Briton] asked his brother officer how he liked the tune now,-- 'D--n them,' returned he, 'they made us dance it till we were tired.' -- Since which Yankee Doodle sounds less sweet to their ears."
The British responded with another set of lyrics following the Battle of Bunker Hill:
A full version of the first few stanzas of the song, as it is known today, goes:
During the American Civil War, Southerners added some new lines of their own:
(Note that the sheet music which accompanies these lyrics reads, "The Words to be Sung thru the Nose, & in the West Country drawl & dialect.")