Ranger28 Jul 2006

This is a folk song. Folk songs always romanticise whatever they're talking about. That's the whole fucking point of them - to create an image of something which people don't have access to. In this case it's about national identity to people who don't live in their homeland. Criticising a folk song for not being factually accurate is like saying that Kipling didn't know what it takes to be a man. You don't need to treat triumph and disaster the same, you're just as much a man if you have seven children, never do a day's work, and get your picture printed in the Sun.