I was at a party in the south of France, in the early 1980s, and a couple of locals started playing the Battle of New Orleans tune on fiddle and melodeon. I said that I was surprised to hear them playing an American tune (no-one else had all night) and they looked at me as if I was mad! When I told them what it was the tune to, they said - no - it's a local folk tune from this area. I guess it must have gone to Louisiana via Quebec with the Acadians and presumably Jimmy Driftwood heard it somewhere and decided to write the song to it. The French guys had never heard of Jimmy's song.

Jack