High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! 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.