I liked Big Country well eniugh at the time as a 17 and 18 when The Crossing and the initial singles came out. I liked the tunes, the shirts, the guitars the genuine sentiments.It just seemed like positive, admirable stuff TBH. Big Country fitted in with the construction of identity that was going on within myself. Taking place in books, films and records. A construction of identity.The person I wanted to be. I still want to be that person.
Big Countryfitted in wuth R.E.M., The Smiths, The Go Betweens, Triffids, Lloyd Cole & The Commotions, Prefab Sprout and so on. And the reworking back to the Velvet Underground, Doors, Byrds and so forth that was going on within me from there. I didn't actually buy The Crossing until relatively recently.
But I listened to the record last night after listening through to a podcast about the sad story of Stuart Adamson the band's guiding light. And I realisde exactly what a vision the album is. How good it is. It's almost a mythic record tol isten to now. Young men placing themselves in a huge landscape and exploring and nailing exactly what that means an dhow others can relate and identify with that, How the album was clearly a fundamental statement to Adamson as a differentiating declaration from The Skids and Richard Jobson his foil and the fronttwo of The Skids, the Dunfermline Punk band he'd first come to prominence in.,
The Crossing is a set of songs that stand very much within theur tume and place. The messianic and inspiring lighters aloft wave of guitar bands that was rising at thet point in time; U2, Simple Minds, Bunnymen, Psychedelic Furs. But there's something incredibly stirring about The Crossing and one that's also underpinned with sadness that's actually recognisable within the melodies,massed vocals guitars, drums and lyrics of the record itself that brackets Adamson and his sad, eventual destiny as a Caledonian cousin of Ian Curtis, Adruan Borland and Bily McKenzie.A depressed celebrant.
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