Songs like the "hole in the bucket" and "in the bottom of the sea" are a sort of format. "The House that Jack Built." Each new verse builds on the previous verse. A well-known example is "The Twelve Days of Christmas."

The first time around, they can be pretty funny, but they can get awfully tedious awfully quickly.

There is a group of guys who get together once a year to sing at a local Christmas pageant, and the highlight of their program is "The Twelve Days of Christmas," which they rewrite every year, changing "lords a-leaping" and "swans a-swimming" to topical stuff. New every year. And always hilarious!

Don Firth