Coming back very late to this thread.

If really nearly nobody notices a physical impossibility in a song, it isn't worth the effort to make the lyrics fit the reality.

I remember an article by Martin Gardner many years ago listing instances in pictures, poetry and prose in which wrong positions, shapes and motions of the moon have been shown or described. Many, many instances, whereas everybody gets the motion of the sun correct. It still seems a bit curious to me that everybody knows how the sun moves and not many notice how the moon moves. So if 'Farewell to Nova Scotia' would start with the words 'The sun was rising in the west...' I guess there would be more complaints though that also only requires the earth changing its rotation for a short while.

But as I said above, if nobody really notices ...

Wolfgang