Regarding the Patriot Game/With God On Our Side song, Dominic Behan wrote the following to me in a January 31, 1976 letter from Happendon,Douglas in Lanark, Scotland:

"Thank you for the interest you are showing in my song, `The Patriot Game'. Some years ago I tried to get Dylan to settle the matter as one artist to another. I rang him at an hotel in London where he had been living then. Dylan's reaction was that I didn't have the resources to take any legal action against him, and he therefore replied, `Get lost, bum! The songs I write make other people's attempts at art good.'

"Mr. Dylan was, of course, correct in his view of my financial state. I couldn't take him to court, and, my publishers in America, `The Richmond Organisation', think the whole matter too costly and not worth the candle.

"I wrote the song (words and music) on the 1st January, 1957, after Feargal O'Hanlon had been shot dead the night previously.

"Thanks very much for your interest, though, when dealing with folk as ruthless as Mr. Dylan, I doubt if you and the other honest people around can do a lot of good.

"Thanks anyway and best wishes,

"Dominic Behan."