Here in Australia we are taught something different!
Yankee Doodle went to town,
Riding on a pony
Stuck a feather in his hat
And called it Macaroni.
It’s pretty weird, I know… I have no idea who made it up but there is a kids TV show called “Play School” and I think they sang it on there a lot when I was a kid. (not THAT long ago!)
I’m sorry, I don’t see your point. Your “Australian” version is the same as the nearly universal “American” version. As the Staff Report pointed out, people who remember the lyric as “…went to London” are probably remembering the George M. Cohan lyric, not the folk ditty.
What’s the song ‘Yankee Doodle’ all about?"
And as the Staff Report also pointed out, nobody has any idea who made it up.
My point IS that I have only ever heard that one version.
Checking back, I don’t think I said anything about London, so I think now it’s my turn not to see your point.
I was merely stating that over here, people have it differently, just as people in the US, UK and CANADA also have different versions.
And yes, I do know that no one “has any idea who made it up”… I wasn’t trying to say that some 90’s TV show made it up and falsely created a whole bunch of history about it. I was just pointing out that over here, it’s what they say - and it makes no sense at all.
Who calls a feather macaroni!
I think the confusion seems to be that in the column, Dex did not bother to quote the most commonly known verse, i.e. the one you quote. That is, in fact, the version just about every American learns, too, and probably the only verse most of us know.
Dex got busy quoting all the other verses and earlier versions to trace the history and neglected that one.
So when you say that in Australia you are taught something different, in fact you are taught the same. That was what DDG was trying to point out.
As for the meaning of that verse, it is a continual puzzle to generations of Americans as well. The customary explanation was that calling something “macaroni” was calling it fancy. So by sticking a feather in his hat, Yankee Doodle was trying to show a sense of style and class. In fact, Dex covered that here:
Bolding mine, in which case I have to somewhat withdraw my earlier comment - Dex did quote it, just not separated for easy recognition.
Aha! Ok now it is perfectly clear!
Well, except the meaning of the song and it’s origin! 
My father is a New Yorker, my mother is English, and I grew up in Texas. When I was a little boy (around 1969-70), my mother taught me (and my sisters) Yankee Doodle. She taught us that “Yankee Doodle went to London etc etc etc all the way up until macaroni”. Mom had only been in the states for about five years at the time. The local kids made fun of us for singing it “wrong”, but since you never think your mom is wrong at that age, we hung tough. I’ve just been asking mom about this, and wondered if she was confusing the tune of Yankee Doodle Dandy with the words of Yankee Doodle Boy, but she insists that her way is the way she was taught back in the early 40’s when she was a girl. This makes it all the more interesting since she was born in Egypt to an eventual RAF flyer, and spent the war in Egypt and South Africa (to where she was evacuated). While she doesn’t remember exactly who it was who taught her the song, it was no doubt a member of the military or a spouse or child of the same, and she is insistent that it was London that Mr. Doodle went to, and not merely “to town”. Just out of curiosity, when did the Cagney movie come out?
Inneresting.
I confess that I didn’t look for all versions of Yankee Doodle, since there are zillions. I limited my research pretty much to colonial times and the development in the U.S., I didn’t look at what might have become of the song in the UK or other English-speaking countries, so your mother’s comments are very interesting, Indy. Thanks.
And I see that I didn’t actually quote the most well-known version, a silly oversight. I guess I figured everyone knew that. I’ll amend the Staff Report in the next week or so to fix that.