Yankee Doodle (Dandy)

Various European countries claim the original of the tune we know as Yankee Doodle, and it was the British who brought the tune to America during the French and Indian Wars. The opening words of the song refer to the fact that when Oliver Cromwell rode horseback into Oxford in 1653 he wore a hat decorated with a single feather fastened by an elaborate knot — an Italian decoration called a “macaroni.“ The British troops used the song and the term sarcastically, to ridicule the makeshift appearance of the d