[2] Songwriter Bill Martin described "Shang-a-Lang" as an attempt to combine Brill Building songwriting - in particular the partly onomatopoeic lines of "Da Doo Ron Ron" - with the clanging sounds he'd long heard emanating from the shipyards in the Glasgow burgh of Govan where he'd been born and raised.

[4] Martin's collaborator Phil Coulter created the track's clapping sound by hitting two pieces of wood together as he had in their 1970 writing success, "Back Home", by the England football team.

[3] "Shang-a-Lang" was Bay City Roller's fifth single release and their third to place in the UK charts, its tenure being ten weeks in the spring of 1974 with a peak of number 2 being held off from the number 1 position by another nostalgic track: "Sugar Baby Love" by The Rubettes.

[5] "Shang-a-Lang" would be the first Bay City Rollers single released in Canada where the group would soon become massively popular.

However the original "Shang-a-Lang" was expediently covered by Montreal-based session group Tinker's Moon whose version charted at #23 in Canada: the Tinker's Moon version also gave "Shang-a-Lang" what attention the song would receive in the US reaching number 111 on the Record World Singles Chart 101 - 150.