One of Laurie Anderson's "Personal Service Announcements", this time discussing national anthems and surrealism. Ripped from the "Collected Videos" VHS cassette.
The way I heard it The Macaroni Club was elite club in London, only for the socialites and upper class. The members identified themselves with a fancy plume in their hats, given to them by The Club. "Yenghis" was the Native American way of saying "English", referring to the English on their soil, so The Brits came up with their own pronunciation of "Yenghis", which was Yankee. Doodle means a fool. The "Yankee Doodles", they said, would stick feathers in their hats, trying to look like Dandys.
"Stuck a feather in his cap and called it "Macaroni' " is an insult to the pompous loyalist elitists of the day who wore powdered wigs called 'Macaroni'. Yankee Doodle, a Union separatist who wanted to split from England and dressed like the people of town not like the King, was shooting a bird to the upper class via his action The song makes sense when you place it in the context of the day and when you understand that 'Macaroni' refers to a wig and not a food product from Italy.
Hey, do you see anything over there? I dunno, there’s a lot of smoke. Say, isn’t that a flag? Couldn’t say, it’s pretty early in the morning. Hey, do you smell something burning? - USA Theme
