Great piece! And glad that your vacation was so wonderful and picturesque and music provoking. You definitely have me wanting to travel to Scotland and Ireland, two countries I haven’t been to yet.
And I did not know the history of Big Country’s third album. So I learned a lot reading this. It really is a shame that the original production has not been released yet. Especially with the 40th anniversary happening. It seems like the perfect time to bring it to the fans. It seems that the 1980s were rife with stories like this. Of terrible production decisions and label fear of anything different than what was popular previously.
It is really easy for Americans to travel there. To both places. And Ireland is especially open to Americans of all colors of the rainbow and persuasion. So it really was a breath of fresh air to see so much inclusion and acceptance and tolerance and love. So I highly recommend going.
Yeah the 80s really effed up a lot if great musical geniuses. The industry truly stood in the way of greatness.
Esp being a fan of both this band and Kate Bush it really is frustrating knowing what could have been.
Great band. Loved them from day 1. Never got to see them with Stuart. Saw them a few years back locally. Could not stop jumping about. Maybe time to listen to seer again
This was a wonderful read. I have to admit, I’ve never really sat down and listened to a lot of Big Country, certainly not with this level of context around them, but you’ve made me want to correct that.
What I really loved here was the way you connected place, history, memory, and production decisions into one story. The idea that The Seer wasn’t too specific, but perhaps too early, really landed with me. That feels like the sad pattern with so much great music: the art is there, the emotional truth is there, but the industry doesn’t always know what it has until much later.
The Kate Bush mix story is especially frustrating. As a fan of both her and bands willing to take real creative risks, it’s painful to think about what might still be sitting unheard somewhere.
I will make an effor to dive in to this gem sometime very soon.
Thanks Howard, I must admit, I figured this post would alienate a lot of my listeners and followers.
I have been on a trend recently with new romanticism, buoyed by the momentum of my Japan post, through to Kraftwerk, Bowie etc. So I have a lot of material that I wanted to build on from that.
However, my break and my trip gave me a reset. So this piece was more for me. I know folk, celtic, traditional music is not everyone's cup of tea. I'm not trying to convert anyone. I was just very moved by my own trip, and I had a love of the region and the music, and Big Country were my spirit animals growing up. So this is just one of those ones I needed to get out of me.
But yeah, what I wanted to portray was the heartbreak and the stories. Big Country's own story is rife with heartbreak and tragedy. I purposely didn't tie in lead singer's Stuart Adamson's own suicide. Cutting short any possibility of a rebirth, resurgence in popularity.
As long as the stories resonate, that makes it worthwhile for me.
As a Campbell, I learned there were MacDonalds and those with variants of that name who were not willing to let me forget what my ancestors had done. And while celtic music never did much for me, Big Country did because of the emotion packed into the songs.
Oh right! I forgot it was a blood-feud also between Campbells and McDonald’s that led to that. The tour guide made it clear to us, that the feud lasts to this day, with Mac Donald’s warning all to “never trust a Campbell”. It’s important to learn history, but carrying grudges centuries afterwards doesn’t do anyone any good. The whole sins of the parents visited upon children, I mean that’s where the whole “collective punishment” cycle comes in, and I never condone. History exists to teach us not to repeat the past, not to bludgeon folks over the head with it, carrying resentments onward. Didn’t mean to dredge up any bad blood.
Well, MacDonalds might have bad blood, but not me. Oddly, when I was a kid, my neighbors were MacDonalds, but they had the story backwards and thought their clan kick our clan's asses.
Great piece! And glad that your vacation was so wonderful and picturesque and music provoking. You definitely have me wanting to travel to Scotland and Ireland, two countries I haven’t been to yet.
And I did not know the history of Big Country’s third album. So I learned a lot reading this. It really is a shame that the original production has not been released yet. Especially with the 40th anniversary happening. It seems like the perfect time to bring it to the fans. It seems that the 1980s were rife with stories like this. Of terrible production decisions and label fear of anything different than what was popular previously.
It is really easy for Americans to travel there. To both places. And Ireland is especially open to Americans of all colors of the rainbow and persuasion. So it really was a breath of fresh air to see so much inclusion and acceptance and tolerance and love. So I highly recommend going.
Yeah the 80s really effed up a lot if great musical geniuses. The industry truly stood in the way of greatness.
Esp being a fan of both this band and Kate Bush it really is frustrating knowing what could have been.
Great band. Loved them from day 1. Never got to see them with Stuart. Saw them a few years back locally. Could not stop jumping about. Maybe time to listen to seer again
Turns out I just missed the new lineup performing a 40th anniversary show in the highlands. Which would have been epic.
So yeah I never got to see them in any incarnation.
Enjoyed this so much. I need to take some time to really listen o this album. The Remembrance Day video is great.
Yeah it’s really amazing seeing their live clips. The energy but also the fun they all seem to have on stage.
This was a wonderful read. I have to admit, I’ve never really sat down and listened to a lot of Big Country, certainly not with this level of context around them, but you’ve made me want to correct that.
What I really loved here was the way you connected place, history, memory, and production decisions into one story. The idea that The Seer wasn’t too specific, but perhaps too early, really landed with me. That feels like the sad pattern with so much great music: the art is there, the emotional truth is there, but the industry doesn’t always know what it has until much later.
The Kate Bush mix story is especially frustrating. As a fan of both her and bands willing to take real creative risks, it’s painful to think about what might still be sitting unheard somewhere.
I will make an effor to dive in to this gem sometime very soon.
Thanks Howard, I must admit, I figured this post would alienate a lot of my listeners and followers.
I have been on a trend recently with new romanticism, buoyed by the momentum of my Japan post, through to Kraftwerk, Bowie etc. So I have a lot of material that I wanted to build on from that.
However, my break and my trip gave me a reset. So this piece was more for me. I know folk, celtic, traditional music is not everyone's cup of tea. I'm not trying to convert anyone. I was just very moved by my own trip, and I had a love of the region and the music, and Big Country were my spirit animals growing up. So this is just one of those ones I needed to get out of me.
But yeah, what I wanted to portray was the heartbreak and the stories. Big Country's own story is rife with heartbreak and tragedy. I purposely didn't tie in lead singer's Stuart Adamson's own suicide. Cutting short any possibility of a rebirth, resurgence in popularity.
As long as the stories resonate, that makes it worthwhile for me.
As a Campbell, I learned there were MacDonalds and those with variants of that name who were not willing to let me forget what my ancestors had done. And while celtic music never did much for me, Big Country did because of the emotion packed into the songs.
Oh right! I forgot it was a blood-feud also between Campbells and McDonald’s that led to that. The tour guide made it clear to us, that the feud lasts to this day, with Mac Donald’s warning all to “never trust a Campbell”. It’s important to learn history, but carrying grudges centuries afterwards doesn’t do anyone any good. The whole sins of the parents visited upon children, I mean that’s where the whole “collective punishment” cycle comes in, and I never condone. History exists to teach us not to repeat the past, not to bludgeon folks over the head with it, carrying resentments onward. Didn’t mean to dredge up any bad blood.
Well, MacDonalds might have bad blood, but not me. Oddly, when I was a kid, my neighbors were MacDonalds, but they had the story backwards and thought their clan kick our clan's asses.