Interesting; but that was one of the things that wasn't what Barbara was looking for.

Not that I can add anything much at the moment. What we know so far isn't a lot to work on. Although it does sound vaguely familiar, that may just be because there are commonplaces involved. You can easily get to a point where everything reminds you of something else. There are probably hundreds of songs in which somebody crosses the raging main, for one thing.

So, a few questions instead. What is the book? Who wrote it? Where is "locally"? Could you post the entire passage concerned, or at least all that relates to the song in question? Knowing what the other songs were might provide useful context; at all events we need to know everything that you know on the subject if we are to get any further.