Sounding Like Bagpipes

Happy bagpipe noises from Big Country, 1983.
In memory of Stuart Adamson, 1958 - 1991.

Singer and guitar player Stuart Adamson had previously been in The Skids before he founded Big Country in 1982 with his friend Bruce Watson, who cleaned the Royal Navy nuclear submarine fleet at Rosyth naval base.

He gave up drinking the day of Live Aid, and stayed dry for more than ten years. Stuart moved to Nashville, Tennessee, where he formed a new band and remarried.

He relapsed after his second marriage broke down, and disappeared in November 2001 after watching Ireland play Iran at soccer, in an Irish bar in Atlanta with his AA sponsor. He was found dead in a hotel room in Honolulu, five weeks later.

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

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

In a big country
Dreams
Stay with you
Like a lover's voice
Fires the mountainside
Stay alive

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

In a big country
Dreams
Stay with you
Like a lover's voice
Fires the mountainside
Stay alive