I am catching up on some of the volumes of info on this song. I am indebted to Malcolm Jones and many others for setting the record straight. There are copyright concerns with uniting my late father's lyrics to the tune. Westminster Music and David Silver (writer of the official lyrics) are in a permanent and very weird copyright wrangle - refusing to admit the version exists. So for decades it has been wrongly circulating (mostly via Calum Kennedy/Fiona Kennedy being licensed on compilations).

My father mentions a little of the dispute in a 'Scots Magazine' article in April 1993. I had a double page spread in the 'Highland News' a couple of years ago. All hell broke loose in October/November 1988 when a country music group Colorado recorded and used the Ross version on an award-winning country album. Westminster Music and Silver had stories all over the Scottish press that this version of the song was banned!

I have been simply trying to resolve the confusion over whose version is whose. As circulating the (misquoted) lyrics makes the song sound ancient when it was only written in 1963. New information has arisen and been sent to me on the origin of the tune - which only became Dark Island in 1963.

I don't have the Internet and only use it sporadically. The first version of my father's lyric came out on sheet music - which was withdrawn after a year due to copyright reasons.

The first recording was made in 1966 by a singer called Argo Cameron (terrible badly arranged version). This was credited. However, MCPS withdrew this. Calum and Fiona Kennedy preferred my father's version and would not stop using it. They recorded it on large-selling LP's, tracks of which have been licensed out and re-cycled. The work was wrongly attributed to Maclachlan or Maclachlan/Silver as my father was not at the time an MCPS (British copyright licensing member).

It gets very complicated - but my father did win an out of court settlement with one small record company at the high court Edinburgh in 1977. Anyway, I've become obsessed with the dispute and am trying to distance myself, at the same time correct wonky histories on this and other songs if I can. I had the lyrics taken off - but they have re-appeared elsewhere. It's not quite as bad when credit is given and the misquotes are corrected. The official copyright owners of the tune and Silver lyric will not be happy either way.

If Malcolm Jones or other parties with a long standing interest in the song would like to contact me for some documents - and fresh information on the tune - I'd be happy to oblige. I don't know whether to post my address on the Internet or give my e-mail phone address.

Anyway, my father Stewart Ross (1929-1993) wrote a number of (maybe cheesy - but effective) Scottish and country songs. Mostly he wrote words and music, but he was haunted by record company errors, misprints, mistitles of his own songs and registration errors. Don't always believe a single sleeve credit!

I would like to find somewhere to archive his songs (all are registered copyright works), but though many have been used on numerous albums, they have never been put together in one place - and are too eclectic or cheesy for the 'traditional' purists. Yet some of his songs are on standard Scottish samplers. You will find a bit about my father in the Scots Magazine of April 1993. This article does not mention the country music aspect. My father was a nominee for top British songwriter by the CMA Britain in 1979.

He never made much money though! Only lucky break was having Daniel O'Donnell doing one of his songs (and this song is a Scottish song - not Irish!).

Regards.