The film and source novel's title, 'The Little Drummer Girl', is a play and variation on the title of the well-known popular Christmas song and hymn, 'The Little Drummer Boy' which was written in 1941 by 'Katherine Kennicott Davis'. The hymn was originally known as 'Carol of the Drum'.
Joseph: What have you done really? Gotten yourself filmed in one demonstration or another in Trafalgar square? You even made the evening news when you sat on a road in front of a bus and read aloud from Che Guevara. Tell us what you've done besides talk. Not a thing.