A few on here pointing out that historical accuracy cannot be ascertained from the words of song.

Quite.

That makes it all the more historically useful and relevant. Otherwise, we might think that propaganda, jingoism and revision were modern phenomena.

If the exercise includes getting into the heads of people around at the time, then future historians won’t use The Da*ly Ma*l for accuracy but to see what many people thought was accuracy. Hence such rags will be of interest.

Similarly, many versions of the same song from the Napoleonic era portray different battle outcomes and statistics. It would be base ignorance to judge them against demonstrable evidence of outcomes. They are what some wished others to think, what some thought and what some felt others thought. All are a window into the minds of those at the time.

I was a miner on strike in 1984. It seems to be popular these days to write songs about it. I’ve yet to hear one that I’d be comfortable with in terms of accuracy and that was only 35 years ago...