Does anybody have the date of the Frank Crumit recording, please? It was said that my grandmother brought this back from America in 1924, and a date would clear this up.

From "Abdulla Bulbul" to "Abdul a Bulbul" to "Abdul the Bulbul" is a nice set of mutations.

Does it "count" as a folksong now, as a result of these and the other changes, accretions etc.?

I was told that, like "we'll drink-a drink-a drink to Lily the pink-a pink-a pink" and "The Ash Grove", that in Australia this was one of those songs better known by its obscene parody/parodies than in its original. I never knew the parody-versions of any of them, am grateful for it here, and for the sequel with the widows, of which I had never heard. The Near East, Bombay: all the same general "foreign" clime of comic, posturing heroes ith the codes of honour.

Sanjay Sircar