For He's A Jolly Good Fellow

For He's A Jolly Good Fellow By William Henry Boucher 

Lowry refers to the song in his novel Ultramarine when Dana and Popplereuter on their drunken drift around Dairen sing several songs including For He's A Jolly Good Fellow; "We sang. We sang Drei Segelmann, which I don't know, but I joined in the chorus. We sang Mademoiselle from Armentières, Deutschland uber Alles, and Lisa; For He's A Jolly Good Fellow, and God Save The King; Lisa again, and The Bastard King of England, with which Popplereuter was unfamiliar..." (Pg. 89).

The tune was originally composed the night after the Battle of Malplaquet in 1709. It became a French folktune and was later popularized by Marie Antoinette after she heard one of her maids singing it. The melody became so popular in France that it was used to represent the French defeat in Ludwig van Beethoven's composition "Wellington's Victory" Opus 91 written in 1813.

The melody also became popular in the United Kingdom, for example as a harpsichord exercise, and by the 19th century it was being sung with the words "For he's a jolly good fellow." British and American versions of the lyrics differ. "And so say all of us" is typically British, while "which nobody can deny" is regarded as the American version. Read more on Wikipedia