The liner notes of the Young Tradition's EP "Chicken on a Raft" say sbout "Fire Maringo":

Royston was cruising through Hugill's fine book of sea songs and shanties when he found a fragment of an old cotton screwing worksong. There was no tune attached, and only four verses, so he added some floating verses and made a tune for it. Cotton screwing was about the hardest shipboard task there was: the bales of cotton were forced into the hold until they were packed solid. The men who worked at this would be shorebound sailors, working in the South American harbours till they had saved themselves some money; all nations were represented, so the songs they sang would perhaps contain references to Sally Brown's counterpart in all parts of the world; for the purposes of this song, the sailor came from Liverpool.