When this song was in vogue, and I was in the Third Grade, I was surprised to see that song in amongst all the other boring stuff we had to learn at St. George Catholic Grade School in Pittsburgh, PA. It probably was the original, since the last line read: "The waiter doth roar it through the hall, Thou gets no bread with one meatball." Burl Ives, or nobody else, ever sang those words, but we Third Graders did.