I'm still puzzled by people worrying about factual accuracy. I mean, how many good songs that tell a story worry about that? They select, they interpret, they turn the bits around. They tell a story, and that story contains some element of the truth, (since they are good songs).

I mean, imagine if someone traced some historical episode on which Barbara Allen was based and started saying "this song is rubbish, she wasn't called Barbara, and he wasn't on his death bed anyway, and they didn't have church bells in that part of the country, and she lived to a ripe old age".