?Vincent Black Lightning 1952? is one of Richard Thompson?s most beloved songs but the only trouble with the song?s title is that the Vincent company did not make a 1952 model.
Is that ?artistic licence? a case of sloopy reseach or just a case of Richard liking the sound ?1952? and it giving him more rhyming options?
And take Mark Knopfler?s ?Sailing To Philadelphia?. In the song Mark has Charlie Mason ( as in the Mason-Dixon Line ) described as a ?Geordie Lad? when in fact he came from Durham. Again, is this dodgy artistic licence.
And, would the songwriters from the 20s/30s/40s have been so ?imprecise.
Of course, that breed of song lyricists were very precise in certain areas, and they demanded ?perfect rhymes?, but come the rock era all that disappeared.
Dylan, for example, rhymes ?man? and ?sand? in the first verse of ?Blowin? in the Wind? and he has been called the greatest lyric writer of the rock era.
However, those old songwriters did come up with some dodgy lyrics. For example, in ?Winter Wonderland? ( 1934 ) the use of the word ?conspire", as in the line ?later on we?ll conspire, as we dream by the fire?, is a poor choice of word and always makes me cringe.