During that four-decade period, the man born on the Fourth of July produced 80 Broadway shows and wrote more than 1,000 songs. Although Cohan liked to describe himself as “just a song and dance ...

We send the Yanks "Over There." And, of course, "Yankee Doodle Dandy" conjures up pictures of George Washington, Valley Forge and the heroes of 1776. Well, sorry to disappoint.

His song "Over There" was a morale builder for World War I, a notoriously stupid and wasteful enterprise. With a jaundiced eye, one might see "Yankee Doodle Dandy" as 2004 war propaganda and ...