Thanks, Joe - I've never seen those later verses of the song, and I'd always assumed that it was a street/playground song rather than a written one.

I think Jimmy Cagney would have been singing the original song in the film. I'm hoping more about that parody and about whoever recorded it comes up.

That record might have had Hallelujah I'm a Bum on the other side, or some version of it anyway.

I'm sure that Pete St John must have "East Side West Side" in his mind when he wrote "(Dublin in) The Rare Ould Times" - the fall of the verses and the tune have a family resemblance. And the story has as well. (And of course that's no kind of criticism - good songs need to have roots, I strongly believe.)