Lillibullero

Lillibullero is a march that sets the words of a satirical ballad generally said to be by Lord Thomas Wharton to music attributed to Henry Purcell. Although Purcell published Lillibullero in his compilation Music's Handmaid of 1689 as "a new Irish tune", it is probable that Purcell appropriated the tune as his own, a common practice in the musical world of the time. It is the BBC World Service's signature tune. According to the BBC, it "started life as a jig with Irish roots, whose first appearance seems to be in a collection published in London in 1661 entitled 'An Antidote Against Melancholy', where it is set to the words 'There was an old man of Waltham Cross'." A French version of the tune is known as the Marche du Prince d'Orange, and is attributed to Louis XIV's court composers Philidor the Elder and Jean-Baptiste Lully.