In the eighties I was a fan of the music group Big Country. I saw them in concert once in St. Petersburg. Good stuff. Here are the lyrics of their big hit
“In a Big Country”
I've never seen you look like this without a reason,
Another promise fallen through, another season passes by you.
I never took the smile away from anybody's face,
And that's a desperate way to look for someone who is still a child.
CHORUS:
In a big country, dreams stay with you,
Like a lover's voice, fires the mountainside..
Stay alive..
(I thought that pain and truth were things that really mattered
But you can't stay here with every single hope you had shattered)
I'm not expecting to grow flowers in the desert,
But I can live and breathe and see the sun in wintertime..
CHORUS [x2]
So take that look out of here, it doesn't fit you.
Because it's happened doesn't mean you've been discarded.
Pull up your head off the floor, come up screaming.
Cry out for everything you ever might have wanted.
I thought that pain and truth were things that really mattered
But you can't stay here with every single hope you had shattered.
I'm not expecting to grow flowers in the desert,
But I can live and breathe and see the sun in wintertime..
CHORUS [x3]
The bio on their lead singer, Stuart Adamson:
Rock musician. Although born in Manchester, Adamson grew up in Crossgates (near Dunfermline). Initially a member of the punk-rock group The Skids in the late 1970s, Adamson went on to form the band Big Country (1981) with whom he made his most noted contribution through his distinctive style of guitar playing. Their albums include The Crossing (1983), Steeltown (1984), The Seer (1986), Peace In Our Time (1988), No Place like Home (1991), The Buffalo Skinners (1993), Why the Long Face (1995) and Driving to Damascus (1999).
Having suffered from alcohol-related depression, Adamson disappeared from his home in Nashville (USA), to be found dead some weeks later in a hotel in Hawaii.
What got me thinking of them is a commercial for Kohl’s department store that’s been on the past few weeks. I don’t know about you, but I hate it when popular songs get bastardized into commercials. I don’t like musicians selling out their music to be background music to sell soap, restaurants, tampons, computers, underwear, or whatever. Whether it’s Bob Dylan, the Beatles, the Go-Gos, The Who, the Rolling Stones, or Big Country. It’s their right, I suppose. And it’s my right to bitch about it.
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9 comments:
On the same token I dislike when bookcovers change to further advertise the movie version of said book. I don't want Bob Seger advertising Ford and I don't want Scarlett Johannson replacing the real Girl with the Pearl Earring.
Money is King in America . It's a rare artist who is willing to "live " for art alone and suffer in his garret till he's dead . Van Gogh was the last one that comes to mind and maybe as crazy as this sounds Cat Stevens traded it all in for something other then money but I suppose thats debatable , ak
Please, if you were the lead of Big Country and Kohl's offered you money for your only hit in the 80s (and you probably can use the money and certainly the exposure), how could you say no?
The lead of Big Country is dead, so I doubt if he cares
His widows probably quite pleased.It was a crap song anyway
oh, go check on the condition of Doherty's liver!
I love that song. It had bagpipey sounding guitars in it. I remember what he looked like. Sad to hear he's dead.
Funny, I know the words to that song (I actually have their CD that has that song on it) because I sing along to it everytime I listen to it but, they're quite prophetic when you read them written out.
Finally Mum and I disagree about something, I was beginning to believe that I was the less witty of a pair of twins separated at birth.
I can understand his widow selling the song rights--afterall, you wouldn't have mentioned the song at all if not for Kohl's. And as Moby and Sting have proved a song (even if a trashy cover) can sell records and make the dead relevant.
By the way, love the dylan Ipod commercial ;-P
don't diss my Pete at least I'm not in some 80s time warp you castro loving sicko :P
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