The Ballad of Billy the Kid, by Billy Joel: every last word in it.
I knew that, I swear it. 
The point stands that potato vodka (which was pretty popular once upon a time post-Columbus) is considerably more oily and impure than grain spirit vodka, and that ancient vodka would have been pretty impalatable by modern tastes.
Well, the battle was on January 8, 1815, but Jackson and his men took their trip to New Orleans in 1814.
However, they did not actually powder the bottoms of alligators and use them as cannon. 
My error-filled song in The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia:
Georgia’s execution method is the electric chair, not hanging.
If they “hung” (you mean hanged) your brother, why did the lights go out?
If the “Georgia Patrol” (I assume you mean the State Patrol) was flagged down by your brother’s shot, how did it happen that a “big-bellied sheriff” grabbed his gun. The State Patrol is state law enforcement, while the sheriff is local law enforcement. They’re not going to be patrolling together.
Bob Dylan’s songs are full of factual errors. I’ll give just a few examples.
[QUOTE=115th Dream]
Well, the last I heard of Ahab
He was stuck on a whale
That was married to the deputy
Sheriff of the jail
But the funniest thing was
When I was leavin’ the bay
I saw three ships a-sailin’
They were all heading my way
I asked the captain what his name was
And how come he didn’t drive a truck
He said his name was Columbus
I just said, “Good luck”
[/QUOTE]
People were not allowed to marry cetaceans even in pre-Puritan America.
[QUOTE=Gates of Eden]
Of war and peace the truth just twists
Its curfew gull just glides
Upon four-legged forest clouds
The cowboy angel rides
With his candle lit into the sun
Though its glow is waxed in black
All except when ’neath the trees of Eden
[/QUOTE]
Have you ever tried to keep a candle lit while riding a horse? Let alone a cloud?
[QUOTE=Highway 61 Revisited]
Oh God said to Abraham, “Kill me a son”
Abe says, “Man, you must be puttin’ me on”
God say, “No.” Abe say, “What?”
God say, “You can do what you want Abe, but
The next time you see me comin’ you better run”
Well Abe says, “Where do you want this killin’ done?”
God says, “Out on Highway 61”
[/QUOTE]
Highway 61 roughly follows the Mississippi River, going nowhere near Mount Moriah.
In Piano Man, by Christie Brinkley’s ex:
It’s a Gin and Tonic, dude!
Most versions of “The Ballad of Casey Jones” manage to get a few things right. There was a guy named Casey Jones, and a train, and it crashed and he died.
Johnny Cash’s version is one of the more accurate popular recordings, but it gets the location wrong - New Orleans, not “Frisco”.
Okay, now I went and listened to the song, and it appears I have spoken wrongly of the Man in Black :o His version has the train pulling out of Memphis and crashing in northern Mississippi, which is correct.
He still sings about a “six-eight wheeler”, though, whatever that was 
I know we’re just having fun here, but I’ll pick on these two examples to make my point.
Lyricists, like poets and visual artists, are *allowed *to twist phrases, bend words, create different perspectives. It’s what they do. It makes the work more interesting. We are talking about a creative work, not a peer-reviewed scientific study.
I happen to like both of the above examples. “Ghost from a wishing well” invokes a creepy atmosphere that suits the song (and GL’s voice) very nicely; the alliteration of ‘wishing well’ is perfectly placed.
I am a little less in love with “carbon and monoxide”, but I consider it a clever and unexpected twist on what a more boring lyricist might compose. We all know he means carbon monoxide; saying carbon and monoxide makes it fresh.
Your mileage may deviate.
see what I did there?
mmm
ETA: All that said, “South Detroit” really rubs me the wrong way, so I’m not entirely unaffected.
I’ve never seen the Sun set in the east, but I have, on two occasions, seen sunsets in the east. The cloud conditions were just right that the entire sky was that orange-on-purple color.
Tom Petty:
It’s a long day, living in Reseda
There’s a freeway runnin’ through the yard
There is no freeway in Reseda.
If the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, what happens can’t really be called amore.
If a guy really leaves his heart in San Francisco, then he ain’t gonna be in any conditon to be singing much about it.
Steve Earle’s Copperhead Road:
He only came to town about twice a year
He’d buy a hundred pounds of yeast and some copper line
No, he’d come into town for a humdred pounds of sugar maybe, but not yeast.
Steam locomotives are classified by x-y-z: The number of wheels in front, the number of driven wheels, and the number of wheels in the back.
There was one 6-8-6 built (no other 6-8-Xs) but too late for Mr Jones.
Brian
Why’s South Detroit wrong? Is that saying like East Philadelphia (there is no East Philadelphia, unless you’re cracking a joke about New Jersey)?
Barney Clark could’ve.
(I’ve probably mentioned this before on the SDMB, but oh well…)
Stevie Wonder’s song “Rocket Love” contains a reference to “symphonies by Bach or Brahms.”
Johann Sebastian Bach did not write any symphonies; the symphony as we know it had not been invented in his day.
In Mr. Wonder’s defense, he might have been referring to P.D.Q. Bach, or one of Bach’s other composer sons. And, besides Brahms, there just aren’t that many prominent symphonists with one-syllable names that would fit the meter of the song.
Reminds me of when the writer of “The Night Chicago Died” was criticized for penning the line “East Side of Chicago”. He responded “they claim there is no East Side of Chicago. There’s an east side of everything!”
Thank you, Professor Obvious.
No mention of Vanessa Williams’ Saved the Best for Last?
Not in any thing I’ve ever read.
Concerning Billy Joel and * The Ballad of Billy the Kid*, he admitted in the liner notes of Songs In the Attic that it was totally historically inaccurate.