Gareth & assembled Crew:

The folk process is not what's at issue. "The Colours" is not a trad song. It was written by TMTCH and first released in 1988 (I think). So it's not only written after the fact, but almost 200 years after!

It was written, I think, to connect the band's own left-wing politics to the history of the mutinies. This fits the band's profile well; songs like "Ironmasters," "Shirt of Blue," "Ghosts of Cable Street" are all about not just history but Labor history; in "Ghosts" it is not just a general uprising but a labor uprising of working men in gloves and boots that defeat and disband the British Union of Fascists and club Moseley.

Because the band included details that fit their own agenda rather than accurate research, many of the historical details--such as the Republican flag, the socialist leaning of the council and the sympathy for napoleon--don't fit the great mutinies too well, which was why I was so skeptical. But as Gareth says, the time period, the references to Pitt and even the reference to Bonaparte as leader (at that time, general of the invasion force) do fit the mutinies at the Nore and Spithead.

Paddy: yeah, Jacobin would have been correct. But I was quoting the lyrics from the band's website, which do say "Jacobean."

Nerd