Abdul Abulbul Amir

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"Abdul Abulbul Amir" is a folk song written in 1877 by Percy French and later set to music. It tells the story of two valiant heroes — a Russian and one of the Shah's mamelukes — who because of their pride end up in a fight and kill each other.

Frank Crumit, who was famous for his renditions of it, wrote three sequels: "The Return of Abdul Abulbul Amir", "The Grandson Of Abdul Abulbul Amir", and "Minnie Skavinsky Skavar".

It is said that the song was a favorite of President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

In the 1980s Whitbread adapted the song using their own lyrics for a series of commercials on British television, suggesting that the two protagonists were great fans of their beer who squabbled over trivialities.

Contents

[edit] Lyrics

Like many folk songs, it has variations of lyrics. This is a common one:

The sons of the Prophet are many and bold

and quite unaccustomed to fear,

But the bravest by far in the ranks of the Shah,

Was Abdul Abulbul Amir.


If you wanted a man to encourage the van,

Or harass the foe from the rear,

Storm fort or redoubt, you had only to shout

for Abdul Abulbul Amir.


Now the heroes were plenty and well known to fame

in the troops that were led by the Czar,

And the bravest of these was a man by the name

of Ivan Skavinsky Skavar.

One day this bold Russian, he shouldered his gun

and donned his most truculent sneer,

Downtown he did go where he tred on the toe

of Abdul Abulbul Amir.


"Young man," quoth Abdul, "has life grown so dull

That you wish to end your career?

Vile infidel know, you have trod on the toe

Of Abdul Abulbul Amir.


So take your last look upon sunshine and brook

And send your regrets to the Czar

For by this I imply, you are going to die,

Count Ivan Skavinsky Skavar."


Then this bold Mameluke drew his trusty chibouk,

Singing, "Allah! Il Allah! Al-lah!"

And with murderous intent he ferociously went

for Ivan Skavinsky Skavar.


They parried and thrust, they side-stepped and cussed,

Of blood they spilled a great part,

The philologist blokes, who seldom crack jokes,

Say that hash was first made on the spot.


They fought all that night neath the pale yellow moon;

The din, it was heard from afar,

And huge multitudes came, so great was the fame,

of Abdul and Ivan Skavar.


As Abdul's long knife was extracting the life,

In fact he was shouting, "Huzzah!"

He felt himself struck by that wily Kalmuck,

Count Ivan Skavinsky Skavar.


The Sultan drove by in his red-breasted fly,

Expecting the victor to cheer,

But he only drew nigh to hear the last sigh,

Of Abdul Abulbul Amir.


Czar Petrovich, too, in his spectacles blue

Rode up in his new crested car.

He arrived just in time to exchange a last line

With Ivan Skavinsky Skavar.


There's a tomb rises up where the Blue Danube rolls,

And graved there in characters clear,

Is, "Stranger, when passing, oh pray for the soul

Of Abdul Abulbul Amir."


A splash in the Black Sea one dark moonless night

Caused ripples to spread wide and far,

It was made by a sack fitting close to the back,

of Ivan Skavinsky Skavar.


A Muscovite maiden her lone vigil keeps,

'Neath the light of the cold northern star,

And the name that she murmurs in vain as she weeps,

is Ivan Skavinsky Skavar.

[edit] In popular culture

[edit] See also

The plot of the song resembles that of Alexander Pushkin's much shorter poem Delibaş (Russian: Делибаш) written in 1829, and inspired by the Russo–Turkish War (1828–1829).

[edit] External links

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