According to Albert Mackie's The Scotch Comedians (1973), Fyffe got the inspiration for the song from a drunk he met at Glasgow Central Station. The drunk was "genial and demonstrative" and "laying off about Karl Marx and John Barleycorn with equal enthusiasm". Fyffe asked him "Do you belong to Glasgow?", and the man replied "At the moment, at the moment, Glasgow belongs to me."Mackie, Albert David. The Scotch Comedians: from the music hall to television. (Edinburgh: Ramsay Head, 1973)
