I was thirteen when I first heard Stuart Adamson and Big Country on the radio. At that point the only music I had been exposed to were the folk songs and anti-government protest songs we had sung in the Cult / Commune I grew up in, and a few records my mother had collected after we escaped.

After the escape, in the elementary school I ended up in, we had a music teacher who would encourage us to bring in albums to share with the class. That was my initiation into popular culture. I don’t remember the grade, but I do remember bringing in a copy of ‘Super Trouper’ by Abba I had bought for my mother… I was ten, and it was the first time I had been in a record store.

So that was it: ‘Solidarity Forever’; ‘We the Workers of Canada’; ‘Farewell to Nova Scotia’; some Steely Dan; ‘Band On The Run’, by Wings; Abba, and; whatever was on CBC Radio in the morning. That was pretty much it for the scope of my music awareness.

When I was thirteen, I was visiting with my Aunt — she also escaped the Cult I grew up in. She always had the radio on. I remember it was just the two of us in the house at the time. I think we were in her kitchen, and the DJ came on and said something to the effect of “…and here’s something new straight out of Scotland”. She turned to me and said, “…hey, you’re straight out of Scotland” and she turned up the volume.

…I remember that being so important. I had no real idea at the time of my History. I had no firm idea my father had been born in Scotland. That, from his side, I was a first generation Canadian. So her dropping that knowledge on me in that moment made me perk up and listen extra intently to the song.

The song was “In A Big Country”, from their second album ‘The Crossing’, by ‘Big Country’. At the time they were a relatively new band out of Scotland, fronted by Stuart Adamson — who had played in the classic punk Scottish band, ‘The Skids’. I didn’t know that until much later, I had never picked up a music magazine before, so music history was beyond me.

I remember the first rolling drums, the strange sounding guitar — they used a special device on the lead guitar to make it sound like a bagpipe, then there were the lyrics… “Pull yourself up off the floor, come up screaming”, “Dreams stay with you, like a lover’s voice across the mountain side”, “Because it happened doesn’t mean you’ve been discarded”.

A few months later I was in a tiny record store and found the cassette in it… actually, I’m not sure of the time frame on this. I might have bought their 1984 EP, “Wonderland”, first while on a class trip to Halifax. Regardless, by the time I was fourteen I had bought ‘The Crossing’, ‘Wonderland’, and their newest album, ‘Steeltown’.

…anyway, there’s a YouTube of Stuart and Big Country performing “In A Big Country” embedded below, if it doesn’t load, just click here and it’ll open in a new tab.