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TIL "Yankee Doodle Dandy" Is Actually An Anti-Gay British Fight Song

Happy Independence Day!

As we celebrate the Fourth of July, we remember that gays and lesbians have been a part of American history from the beginning: Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, who fled sodomy charges in Prussia, was an integral member of the Continental Army, training the troops and serving as General George Washington's chief of staff.

Some historical notes, though, are less inspiring—take the patriotic ditty "Yankee Doodle Dandy." Most of us know it as a silly children's song used to teach about the War for Independence. But in The New York Times this weekend, David Segal revealed its much more insidious origins.

George M. Cohan popularized the tune with his adaptation, “The Yankee Doodle Boy,” from the 1904 musical Little Johnny Jones. But the original "Yankee Doodle" was sung by British troops during the Revolutionary War to suggest American soldiers were, in Segal's words, "gay and bumbling."

It's a play on the word "dandy," referring to a fop or self-absorbed, overly stylish man. The "macaroni" mentioned in the chorus isn't pasta, but rather 18th century slang for the British dandies who eschewed English drabness in favor of European flair—cinched waistcoats, tall white wigs, slippers, and colorful stockings.

Philip Dawe

In another time, they might have been drag queens.

Vintage engraving of Paris fashion during the Reign of Louis XVI (Revolution), 1792. Modes et costumes historiques 1864

“Such a figure, essenced and perfumed, with a bunch of lace sticking out under its chin, puzzles the common passenger to determine the thing’s sex,” Town and Country declared of the macaronis in 1772. “And many a time an honest laboring porter has said, ‘By your leave, madam,’ without intending to give offense.'”

Assumptions about the macaronis' sexuality was widespread: After the arrests of Captain Robert Jones on sodomy charges, the Public Ledger declared "the country is over-run with Catamites, with monsters of Captain Jones’s taste, or, to speak in a language which all may understand, with MACCARONIES."

Segal reveals "Yankee Doodle Dandy" was actually the most popular British rallying chant of its day. A "yankee," of course, is a derogatory term for an American. A "doodle," now meaning a worthless drawing, referred to a fool or patsy. And a dandy was, well, a dandy.

So, essentially, the colonists were stupid faggots. Only they couldn't even do that right:

Here’s the clincher: The doodle can’t pull it off. He thinks that sticking a feather in his cap will suffice to join Britain’s most effete club. In reality, he needs an elaborate costume.

The subtext—actually, it might just be the text—is that this quintessential American is a homosexual so daft that he can’t even demonstrate his homosexuality.

The delicious irony is that, as the colonists began to win the war, they embraced "Yankee Doodle Dandy" as their own. After the Battle of Saratoga, an English officer reported hearing American troops singing the song in victory.

"'Yankee Doodle’ is now their paean, a favorite of favorites, played in their army... It is the lover’s spell, the nurse’s lullaby,” he wrote. "It was not a little mortifying to hear them play this tune, when their army marched down to our surrender."

The point, says Segal, is not to stop singing "Yankee Doodle." It's to realize that reappropriating slurs is as American as apple pie. (Something the LGBT community knows a little something about.)

Reappropriation is an American specialty—a rhetorical stratagem practiced even before the Declaration of Independence was signed. So by singing “Yankee Doodle,” you’re not just celebrating the country’s birth. You are belting out words used by the soldiers who made that birth possible, and with a taunt that boomeranged for the ages.

Below, read the full lyrics of both the kid's version of "Yankee Doodle Dandy" and the original.

Kid's Version

Yankee Doodle went to town

A-riding on a pony

He stuck a feather in his hat

And called it macaroni

Chorus:

Yankee Doodle, keep it up

Yankee Doodle dandy

Mind the music and the step

and with the girls be handy!

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

And there was Captain Washington

And gentle folks about him

They say he's grown so tarnal proud

He will not ride without them.

Chorus

Full version of Yankee Doodle:

Yankee Doodle went to town

A-riding on a pony,

Stuck a feather in his cap

And called it macaroni'.

Chorus:

Yankee Doodle keep it up,

Yankee Doodle dandy,

Mind the music and the step,

And with the girls be handy.

Fath'r and I went down to camp,

Along with Captain Gooding,

And there we saw the men and boys

As thick as hasty pudding.

Chorus

And there we saw a thousand men

As rich as Squire David,

And what they wasted every day,

I wish it could be saved.

Chorus

The 'lasses they eat it every day,

Would keep a house a winter;

They have so much, that I'll be bound,

They eat it when they've mind ter.

Chorus

And there I see 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,

and makes a noise like father's gun,

Only a nation louder.

Chorus

I went as nigh to one myself

As 'Siah's inderpinning;

And father went as nigh again,

I thought the deuce was in him.

Chorus

Cousin Simon grew so bold,

I thought he would have cocked it;

It scared me so I shrinked it off

And hung by father's pocket.

Chorus

And Cap'n Davis had a gun,

He kind of clapt his hand on't

And stuck a crooked stabbing iron

Upon the little end on't

Chorus

And there I see a pumpkin shell

As big as mother's bason,

And every time they touched it off

They scampered like the nation.

Chorus

I see a little barrel too,

The heads were made of leather;

They knocked on it with little clubs

And called the folks together.

Chorus

And there was Cap'n Washington,

And gentle folks about him;

They say he's grown so 'tarnal proud

He will not ride without em'.

Chorus

He got him on his meeting clothes,

Upon a slapping stallion;

He sat the world along in rows,

In hundreds and in millions.

Chorus

The flaming ribbons in his hat,

They looked so tearing fine, ah,

I wanted dreadfully to get

To give to my Jemima.

Chorus

I see another snarl of men

A digging graves they told me,

So 'tarnal long, so 'tarnal deep,

They 'tended they should hold me.

Chorus

It scared me so, I hooked it off,

Nor stopped, as I remember,

Nor turned about till I got home,

Locked up in mother's chamber.

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