Yankee Doodle

What is know is that Yankee Doodle was first sung on the shores with a British accent, for during the 1760's the British would needle the colonists with the song's derisive lyrics. British troops sang it when their warships sailed into Boston Harbor in 1768, and in 1775 their reinforcements marched to its strains from Boston to Lexington, hoping to quell what they thought would be no more than a nuisance rebellion. In the first English publication the same year, its title was 'Yankee Doodle', or (as christened by the saints of New England) 'The Lexington March', with the added direction that 'The Words to be Sung thro' the Nose, in the West Country drawl and dialect'.