History
The tune was originally composed the night after the Battle of Malplaquet in 1709. It became a French folk tune and was later popularized by Marie Antoinette after she heard one of her maids singing it. The melody became so popular in France that it was used to represent the French defeat in Beethoven's composition "Wellington's Victory" Opus 91 written in 1813.
The melody also became popular in the United Kingdom, for example as a harpsichord exercise, and by the 19th century it was being sung with the words "For he's a jolly good fellow." By 1862 it was already familiar in America. British and American versions of the lyrics differ. "And so say all of us" is typically British, while "which nobody can deny" is regarded as the American version. Nevertheless, "which nobody can deny" has also been reported by non-American writers including Charles Dickens in Household Words and James Joyce in Finnegans Wake.
Read more about this topic: For He's A Jolly Good Fellow
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The principle that human nature, in its psychological aspects, is nothing more than a product of history and given social relations removes all barriers to coercion and manipulation by the powerful.”
—Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)
“No cause is left but the most ancient of all, the one, in fact, that from the beginning of our history has determined the very existence of politics, the cause of freedom versus tyranny.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)
“All things are moral. That soul, which within us is a sentiment, outside of us is a law. We feel its inspiration; out there in history we can see its fatal strength.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)