Observer you really do talk a load of shite -- (or sh*te as this is an American site) - folk songs do not require to be factually accurate, they reflect how the people feel / felt about something!!!! Just go to the ballads - many of them originating hundreds of years ago, surviving as fragments, being reconstructed and modified to suit other eras, other areas----
Anyway - history as written by the winners of any conflict is not accurate either!!!
And as you have not actually bothered to listen to the Glesca Eskimos or probably any of the other songs from that era -- I don't see any reason why you should be pompously commenting!!! I think its a great, fun song and sang it and many of the others like Ding Dong Dollar to US naval people while they were in Dunoon - and still do anytime I get a chance! (You forgot to mention that Yanks and the general population of the USA are not synonymous- - but it disnae matter - it's part of the songs!!)
You are just nit picking and I have no idea why -- Jim McLean is a brilliant songwriter, I have been enjoying and singing many of his songs for years before even finding out he was the composer!
- What have you written?
I recently composed a ballad (is that a logical statement?!) - Ake, I hope you will appreciate this when you hear it. It is about the death / murder of Baron Macinturner on the Larach between Whistlefield and Ardentinny. There are only fragments of oral history and a little bit of written info -- not necessarily accurate, the event was in 1685 (ish) and I always felt there should be a song or ballad. Eventually it wrote itself in the right hand side of my brain, rhymes and all - and a fair bit of it is 'made up' as there are no facts on which to base the story! But it is all part of painting a picture, filling in the gaps of a dastardly deed and commemorating an event. I am hoping members of the local communities will offer additional ideas and even info, the song can be modified to incorporate these- - I certainly don't expect someone to come along and have a go at me for what, in their opinion, is inaccurate!!!!
Awa' and write yer ain sang!!!
(Ake I humbly apologise for thinking you were grumpy observer!!! Ah should hae kent better!)