They recorded the song in 1956 with their band Elias and His Zig-Zag Jive Flutes on pennywhistles, with a satirical spoken introduction.
[1] The tune was used as theme music for a British television series in 1958 about diamond smuggling in South Africa, The Killing Stones.
[2] Elias and His Zig-Zag Jive Flutes was later renamed Alexandra Black Mambazo and they recorded a vocal version of the song.
[12] When Brighton-based punk band the Piranhas covered the song in 1980, they used new lyrics written by their frontman, "Boring" Bob Grover.
[3] The popularity of the Piranhas' version led to it being adapted by various groups of football fans as chants in Great Britain and Ireland.
[17] In 2006, the song was adapted into "We're England (Tom Hark)" recorded by TalkSport Allstars before the 2006 FIFA World Cup.
It is a remake of the 1980 Piranhas hit which came to be used as an anthem at many football grounds, with new lyrics rewritten by the band's main member, Attila the Stockbroker.
The South African band Mango Groove released a version of the song on their 1997 album Dance Sum More: All the Hits So Far.
[4] Jack Lerole, who co-founded Elias and His Zig-Zag Jive Flutes (the first band to record "Tom Hark"), was also a founding member of Mango Groove.