Hi Joe! There is no chance that my father's lyrics refer to any other song as he only sang popular MOR Scottish and Country stuff apart from the odd one he wrote. He wasn't a 'Muso', and didn't come from a folk background.    However the poem or Ian MaCalman's lyrics refers to some song, yet it's not this one. Another link about the song says that Ian MaCalman pieced together the chorus to the poem. There are a lot of similar ideas in these things. My father's song is a march a 'step it out through the heather' type of thing very much of it's time. So if you go back to his lyrics and follow it - you've to go from the beginning to end, he is following and celebrating all the things, places etc. he's found whilst following the Highland Road. Which is why 'It's the Highland Road' for me.   The geography in the poem refers to different areas of the same road.    My father certainly was unaware of any other songs of the same kind of title - he wasn't into folk stuff. He certainly didn't read poems, or Kipling *though he did like the film Gunga Din. These heather and haggis songs were contemporary and the popular song around here in the 60's when he wrote it. He would never have heard of Hilton Brown, and the poem appears to be really obscure. I wonder where Mr. MaCalman sourced it - and if he knows what in the heck it's referring to?   I can say categorically that this Stewart Ross song was an original, but on a hackneyed theme - which is why the Alexander Brothers wanted to record it, until they found out somebody else had already brought it out.   If somebody writes a poem about the Highland Road, it's almost certain you'll find some of the same ideas.   So the Ian MaCalaman's song celebrates a poem called 'the Highland Road' and the chorus of the MaCalmans' song celebrates another song of that name, which is not the same one as my father's song, unless Ian MaCalman had heard my father's 1960's song!   The title 'Welcome to Scotland' has been used by umpteen record companies -it was Emerald Gem who issued the Dennis Clancy recording one.   That duplication of the title 'Welcome to Scotland', or 'Highland Road to Inverness', shows why these replicas of ideas happen. This heather and haggis stuff which the likes of my fatherwrote usually have parrallels, in the odd word or line. It's the image of kilts, mountains, glens etc. My father fitted most of them in there, it's the genre. The Dennis Clancy version of my father's song was cut to make it less repetitive, and brought down to 2 minutes. The guy who produced it 'Peter Kerr', is now a successful author - but he used to produce hit Scottish recordings, like Amazing Grace, by the Royal Scots Dragoons. I must set out somewhere the story of 'My Bonnie Maureen' - a Scottish song my father wrote for my brother's fiancee.   That one sold over 400,000 copies. But although the main 1988 recording was by Daniel O' Donnell, it sure isn't an Irish song, as it comes from Inverness and was written and first recorded in 1971.