Old Enough to Forget

Big Country hit it big in 1983 with their debut album The Crossing . The album would go gold in the US, and platinum here in Canada. "In a Big Country" was huge, and frankly to most of us is the one hit we know by the band. Audiences are fickle, and who knows what the band's follow up Steeltown didn't resonate outside of the UK where the album would hit number 1 and go gold. I don't remember anything being played on the radio. My buddy Otto had a cassette copy of the album and I remember playing it a couple of times and thinking it was pretty cool. Steve Lillywhite was producing, and comparisons to U2 were inevitable. There were some sonic similarities at times but the bands could not have been more different. U2 were Irish and Big Country were Scottish. One of things that sucks about getting old is having the time to let music percolate. It's one of the reasons most of us are so drawn to the music of our past. We have a deeper connection and more of an emotio...

The future had arrived in 1980 and it was dragging the dinosaurs into the light. Suddenly Pete Townshend was standing in the open, looking around like he meant to be there. Perhaps he did. I mean, as a kid I wasn't unaware of who he was. Who he was. Ha, that's good one. I kill myself. Bottom line though, he was old. Woodstock old. That was old. So it was weird to hear and see so much of Pete Townshend at the beginning of the '80s when there were new sounds and new artists that were demanding attention. Okay, when I say so much, it wasn't as much as you'd think but the songs that were generating what seemed like constant rotation was probably over in the space of a couple of months. As a teenager time and physics don't work as closely as they do when you get older. Time is malleable, and those summer months where I first heard "Let My Love Open the Door" were magical times. Full of late nights by the lake, sleeping in a cabin, working in the bush with ...

For a while producer Steve Lillywhite was a machine. From his earlier work with Peter Gabriel to U2, where I first read his name in their liner notes, the guy was at the helm of some incredible albums. Then in the summer of '83 a very strange song hit the airwaves. "In a Big Country" was big and bombastic and had these melt your face electric bagpipes. A lot of people really liked this song. It was a big hit going top five here in Canada, and the album went platinum here and in the UK and gold in the US. Being the contrarian I treated their hit the way I treated songs by Culture Club. I just turned it off or changed the station. Still there was a begrudging respect. These guys were proud Scots and their mix of traditional and rock music was quite frankly pretty freakin' awesome. One of the cool things now in listening to this album in it's entirety for the first time is how cohesive the songs are as listening experience. I love that the credits actually highlight ...