Anybody here
seen my old friend David Niven?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
He freed lotta people
but it seems the good they die young
You know I just looked around
and he's gone

The story:

I knew all along that it was wrong but it took forever to actually figure out that it was supposed to be Abraham (Lincoln). It probably took at least two years, since I never actually persued it. Whenever I heard the song, that lyric only appears once at the very beginning and it passed before I thought about listening to the words.