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American Ballads and Folk Songs |
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Yankee doodle, keep it up, Yankee doodle dandy j Mind the music and the step, And with the girls be handy.
In searching for the lost words and tune of "Henrietta Lee," we had the aid of F. R Peyton, Greenwich, Connecticut, ballad enthusiast and sales manager for the Conde Nast Press, who quoted from the Providence Journal as follows:
"Although a careful search of the records fails to reveal any poetic appreciation of the paddle-boat in Narragansett Bay, numerous rhymesters have sung the praises of the clam. One bit of doggerel, to be sung to the tune of 'Yankee Doodle,' to the accompaniment of kettle-drum and Jew's-harp, dates from the time when the bay steamers and the clambakes entered whole-heartedly into their felicitous partnership."
It seems worthy of quotation here.
Let gouty monarchs share their shams 'Neath silken-wove pavilions j • But give us Narragansett clams— The banquet for the millions. Yankee Doodle, etc.
Along the Narragansett shore, Polite in their salams, sir, Sat copper-colored kings of yore And feasted on their clams, sir. Yankee Doodle, etc.
Successor to these doughty kings Sits now the Yankee nation, And every jolly Yankee sings His clam-orous collation.
Yankee Doodle, etc.
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