Thanks everyone! That's interesting- the theory that the lines about Martinique and a fire come from the original song. I'm thinking that since a lot of collected folk song books contain the melodies of the songs collected, if Monique or another French speaker on this forum who is familiar with French or French Caribbean folk songs, has a book of songs, one of them might just contain a Martinican song which shares this same melody and says something about a fire. Q, do you happen to know when this claim about a similar song from Martinique first appeared? Did Belasco make the claim himself? A book which I found on Google Books, "Carnival: Culture In Action", a collection of essays analysing how Trinidadian culture is reflected in carnival, says that "L'Annee Passee" came from Martinique and was a folk melody. On the "Rum and Coca-Cola" thread, I seem to remember a post (does anyone remember who wrote it?) which also hypothesises that "it is possible that "L'Annee Passee" was a folk song adapted by Belasco" (perhaps updated to fit with the Mathilda Soye case?). This would seem to fit with the theory that Belasco used a Martinican original for his composition, and that the song was a folk melody.