Does anyone know the origin of this parody? Wikipedia states that it's an American parody of a nursery rhyme: "O dear, what can the matter be?(x3), Johnny's so long at the fair"; and that the nursery rhyme dates back to at least 1780 - but the article says nothing about when the parody was actually written. As others have mentioned in this thread, in Britain it's always been sung as "Three old Ladies," (and Wikipedia does mention that it's been published in Britain as "Three Old Ladies", but again without giving dates); and given the obvious Englishness of some of the lyrics (such as "The Bishop of Chichester's daughter") I'm suspicious of Wikipedia's claim that it originated in the US. My hunch is that it originated in Britain with three old ladies and the other four ladies were added in the US subsequently. Can anyone throw any light on this?