Song composed by George M. Cohan performed by Billy Murray
Not to be confused with the early American song Yankee Doodle.
"The Yankee Doodle Boy", also known as "(I'm a) Yankee Doodle Dandy" is a patriotic song from the
Broadway musical Little Johnny Jones, written by
George M. Cohan. The play opened at the
Liberty Theater on November 7, 1904. The play concerns the trials and tribulations of a fictional American jockey, Johnny Jones (based on the real-life jockey
Tod Sloan), who rides a horse named Yankee Doodle in the
English Derby. Cohan incorporates snippets of several popular traditional American songs into his lyrics of this song, as he often did with his songs. The song was performed by
James Cagney in the 1942 film Yankee Doodle Dandy, in which he played Cohan.[1]
Modern performances and covers
In 2004, the
American Film Institute placed the song at No. 71 on its
AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs. A version of the song was recorded by Cohan's contemporary and fellow Irish-American
Billy Murray, who sang it as indicated in the lyrics. Also, a shortened lyric disco version of the song was sung by
Paul Jabara on the 1977 album Shut Out and the 1983 album Greatest Hits and Misses on Casablanca Records. The song appears in an episode of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.