The very popular (10 weeks on top of the charts!) Andrews Sisters 1945 Calypso hit, a song popular on its own merit, but also being a center of a lawsuit on copyrights and controversial lyrics, especially for the 40’s.

Even the name was of some controversy – Rum or Rhum?.

The original version was written (with Lionel Balesco) and recordeded by Trinidadian Lord Invader, recorded in 1943 (before to the Andrews Sisters did) with quite different lyrics (comparison here) and under the name “L'Annee' Passe'e” (“Last year”) – a folk song in Patois from Martinique which in turn inspired these writers.

The story per berdina –

L'Année Passée “, meaning "Yesterday” ( lit. Last year ), is the true story of a girl named Mathilda Soye. She was the daughter of a very prominent Trinidad family and was educated at a Convent school. She fell in love with a man “in the street”, a “common” fellow, who was no good. She lived with him for some time and then he made her work as a prostitute. The song was written in French Patois and was a lament of the girl on how just the other day she was a little girl and now she was a prostitute, walking the street.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-CE4xYIyng

The song was picked up later by New Yorker Morey Amsterdam who also claimed to have written it, therefore the ensuing lawsuits.