Back when I learned highland dancing in the 1990s, we used to enjoy doing the Scottish Lilt to a recording that Jack Campbell had been given by somebody, featuring Drops of Brandy played on the harp/concertina/bodhrán/… and then later two voices singing Brose and Butter. Nobody at the time seemed to know where it originally came from. I probably have the track on a cassette tape somewhere, but I'm no longer really set up for playing cassette tapes, and in any case it was a copy of Jack's copy of … and actually considerably worse for wear at that point – so it would be interesting to look for the original!

The recording was good for 8 steps of the Scottish Lilt and we much preferred it to the music for the Lilt normally used today at Highland games, which is The Battle of the Somme, a dreary 9/8 retreat march whose sole redeeming quality is probably that it sits better on the pipes than the other tunes. Compared to that, Drops of Brandy and Brose and Butter (which are incidentally the officially proposed tunes for the dance if you check the National Dances book) are a lot lighter, more cheerful, and fun. Now that I'm going back to a bit of Highland dancing in our newly tidied dance hall, having that recording available in good quality would be really nice.

The obvious strategy for locating a track like this, in the year 2025, is to go on YouTube and search for “drops of brandy brose and butter harp vocal”, which gets you a lot of hits that have nothing to do with what we're actually looking for. So, alas, no freebie. But perhaps we can find the actual record somewhere? Google seems to offer various possibilities but the most likely contender, as far as I can tell, is an early-1980s album by Alison Kinnaird called The Harper's Gallery. That would be from the correct era, and according to discogs.com the album has a track called Drops of Brandy/Brose and Butter with Alison Kinnaird on harp, Robin Morton on bodhrán and concertina (probably not at the same time) and both of them singing, supported by Brian McNeill on fiddle and mandolin. All of that sounds just about right. It runs for exactly 2 minutes, which is also right in the middle of the ball park for 8 steps of the Lilt.

Now for actually obtaining a copy. 45 years after its original publication the thing seems to be somewhat rare, but it turns out that the same record was issued in Germany as Die Keltische Harfe, and indeed on eBay there appears to be a used-record shop in Berlin which offers a “near-mint” copy for the princely sum of €8,93 including P&P. That sounds worth checking out (even if it isn't the correct track this will likely still be a very nice album by one of the foremost Celtic harp players of the time, and of course Brian McNeill, so what's not to like?). Hence I ordered it straightaway. It arrived today, and after a certain amount of fiddling with my audio setup – this is a good chance to try the tiny phono pre-amp I got a few weeks ago – the record was actually playing. Not being able to contain myself I skipped ahead to the track in question, and there it was, just like I remembered. Bingo! Now all that remains is digitising it and putting it on the dance PC so I can use it for dancing. Let's see whether I still remember 8 steps of the Lilt 🤔