Songs With Historical Errors In Their Lyrics

Yes that's true.

 

... and talking snakes and talking donkeys and unicorns and giants.. must have been loads of fun in those days

 

So Alley Oop did have a chauffeur that's a genuwine dinosaur?

 

Don't try to tell me men and dinosaurs weren't around at the same time, I've seen the Flintstones.

 

Well done, good sir!

 

I never viewed this as being strict reportage of a real incident, merely inspiration.

 

Didn't know that! Guess he was a little loose with the date, though.

 

Lord Melody's Bob Marley states several inaccuracies: Firstly it claims that the doctor said Bob died of brain cancer due to cigarette use, when he actually died of foot cancer caused by an infected wound - and as far as I'm aware the media had already reported on him having cancer hence cancelling gigs.



Lord Melody did himself have cancer at the time and died a few years later, and it was exacerbated by his heavy smoking for over 40 years...so I sometimes wonder if he bent the truth in the song to warn people.

 

I had a similar quibble with John Fahey's "Jesus Was a Dying-Bed Maker". Guess they wanted the biblical imagery..

 

The Edmund Fitzgerald was not headed for Cleveland

 

I saw him touring the third lp and he introduced the songs as 'rock and roll bulls**t'

 

But the song is not set during the war. It’s clearly about life after the war. So either version is correct.

 

No, he was Zantzinger.
There is some dispute as to whether he actually killed her with the cane. There isn't any report of head trauma on the coroner's report, but who knows how accurate that report was?

W. D. Zantzinger, Subject of Dylan Song, Dies at 69
A Lonesome Death

 

Little Steven's Underground Garage plays the "Liverpool" version.

 

Maybe not historical, but another factual error..............

"Lover Of The Bayou" - The Byrds

There are no crocodiles in Louisiana, only alligators.

 

This is interesting - the jukebox at my local has the "London town" version. It seems further investigation is required!

 

Maybe he reckoned that they were homes for dinosaurs?

 

But it might have taken more than a month for the word to reach them, so maybe it's not inaccurate. That is if he was back home with his family by then. If he was still with the army around Danville then he obviously would have known. But they were starving to death so you can forgive him for being off by a month. On a related note, the line about "there goes Robert E. Lee" or in some versions, "there goes the Robert E. Lee", I guess one is man and the other is a vessel on the river named after the man. Anyway, my great, great grandmother kept one ham in the smokehouse as the war drew to a close on the chance that General Lee might travel through there, so they could provide a meal for him. This even as they were down to little or nothing to eat.

 

Jimmy Driftwood, a history teacher and principal wrote the song to try and drum up some interest in his male students. The date isn't incorrect as it was in December of 1814 that they marched to New Orleans, the actual battle of course took place on the 8th of January and the melody for the song came from a fiddle tune with that name. In his lyrics he correctly identifies Jackson who if I'm not mistaken was a Colonel at that time. I guess it is just the Donegan recorded it to better suit him or based it on a somewhat faulty memory.

 

Yes clearly. I was just having fun with the thread.

As I understand it. The line about Robert E Lee changing to the Robert E Lee was never uttered by the Band but reinterpreted by other artists. Still I like the idea of them meaning the steamboat rather than the general. It's a bit more romantic that way. As for the date, I just don't buy that theory. The fall of Richmond was too huge of news not to have reached Tennessee within a day or two tops. I can see maybe some Western territories getting the news late but not that late.

 

Johnny Horton

 

Maybe, but on an isolated farm where the nearest neighbors might have been a half day's walk and the nearest town even farther news didn't move too fast.

 

"1814 took a little trip along with Col. Jackson" That doesn't mean they fought the battle then, just started getting into place.

 

Yes maybe but the fall of Richmond was essentially the fall of the confederacy. It didn't end the war officially but it was over a week later. I think the south going through that sort of hell for that long would get that news out to everyone. If the date was off by a week, sure, but 5 weeks? No way. Me thinks those Canadians may have been thinking of Lee's surrender on April 9th and mixed it up by saying May.

 

General Lee was held in such high esteem during and following the war that white Southerners held out hope that he would pass their way and they could in some way pay their respects to him. My family as I mentioned earlier would not eat the last ham they had in the smokehouse for a long time on the off chance that he would pass through and they would host him in their home. This was not uncommon so perhaps the reference in the song relates to that common mindset.