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:
“We said that the history of mankind depicts man; in the same way one can maintain that the history of science is science itself.”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)
“It is remarkable how closely the history of the apple tree is connected with that of man.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“It would be naive to think that peace and justice can be achieved easily. No set of rules or study of history will automatically resolve the problems.... However, with faith and perseverance,... complex problems in the past have been resolved in our search for justice and peace. They can be resolved in the future, provided, of course, that we can think of five new ways to measure the height of a tall building by using a barometer.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)