The earliest known recording of the song was by the rebetiko musician Theodotos ( " Tetos " ) Demetriades ( ) in 1927 . Demetriades , an Ottoman Greek , was born in Istanbul , Ottoman Empire , in 1897 , and he resided there until he moved to the United States in 1921 , during a period when most of the Greek speaking population fled the emerging Turkish state . It is likely that he was familiar with the song as a folk song before he moved to the United States . As with almost all early rebetika songs ( a style that originated with the Greek refugees from Asia Minor in Turkey ) , the song 's actual composer has never been identified , and its ownership rested with the band leader . Demetriades named the song " Misirlou " in his original 1927 Columbia recording , which is a Greek assimilated borrowing of the regional pronunciation of " Egyptian " in Turkish ( " Mısırlı " ) , as opposed to the corresponding word for " Egyptian " in Greek , which is ( '' Aigyptioi '' ) . Later , in 1930 , Michalis Patrinos , another Ottoman Greek from Izmir , Ottoman Empire , and his rebetiko band recorded a cover version in Athens , Greece
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Greek genocide
Misirlou