#618: B is for Big Country

I totally sidestepped these guys
as a teenage new wave rocker.
Decades later, for $3.00, I thought
I should probably look into,
beyond that one eponymously
titled hit single, what I was
missing. Not much, it turns out.
But that one tune, you know,
“In a big country, dreams stay
with you like a lover’s voice
fires the mountainside” may
be worth having for three bucks,
although, I have no idea how
a voice might fire a mountainside.
It’s a pretty great song, but
taken as a whole, this album,
it’s bombastic, but kind of boring.
There’s nothing else on this
record as memorable as that hit,
and it serves me
in this moment, trying to
write this poem while simultaneously
in a help chat with Squarespace
customer service, as a pleasant
enough backdrop to my typing.
I will not likely listen to this record ever again.

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Notes on the vinyl edition: Big Country, The Crossing, Polygram Records, 1983, used copy, perhaps an original pressing, super light-weight vinyl, although it is in perfect condition and sounds pretty good. What I don’t like about the way it sounds has more to do with the mix or the production than anything related to the quality of the pressing. This is Steve Lillywhite at the helm, the producer of some of my favorite albums. Go figure.

In case you’re just joining me: I am listening to (almost) every record in my collection in alphabetical order and writing a poem-like-thing in response. It appears that my collection in the letter B is pretty vast! I will “be” here for a while!