Steeltown

 

Big Country

Steeltown

(Mercury 1984) 

Being the fan of a band or artist who is mostly known for one song – the proverbial one hit wonder – is a different kind of fandom.  It puts you on the defensive.  You feel like you have to defend not only your good taste, but the artist that you love.  The more time that passes from that hit becoming a small part of the public consciousness, the more difficult it becomes.  The original hit song loses its meaning and becomes a cliché representing a period of time that we all can collectively reminisce about.  

Big Country’s debut album, The Crossing, in 1983 spawned the US top 40 hit, “In a Big Country.”  You know the one, where the guitars sound like bagpipes and “dreams stay with you,” and everyone wears plaid flannel shirts?  They were often presented to us as Scotland’s version of Ireland’s U2.  The music press attempting to pit these bands against each other.  “In a Big Country” would be their only US hit.  I loved it as a kid.  I wondered if there really were bagpipes – like did the band have a lead bagpiper.  Were there bagpipe solos in their other songs?  After that song seeped its way into the pop culture consciousness, I vaguely remember watching Friday Night Videos in its infancy (my small town did not have MTV yet) when they used to do the weekly Video Vote, and Big Country’s single “Fields of Fire” was featured in the competition.  Friday Night Videos would play two music videos and then allow the nation (or everyone but the West Coast) to vote for their favorite.  Big Country went against a juggernaut like Michael Jackson or Van Halen, and were never played again.  You know what though?  That twelve year old version of me, never forgot that song!  I loved it!  It had a rolling buzz to it that kept it alive in my head until I could get my grubby hands on the album.  That was when I became a fan.  I continued buying all of their records until their final album, 1999’s Driving to Damascus, before bandleader Stuart Adamson’s sad suicide.

 

That’s part of the problem with loving a band that has one well known song.  I don’t want to be that guy who chimes in about how their non-LP single “Wonderland” was a better song, or that “In a Big Country” is nowhere near the best song on their debut (“Inwards” or “Chance” for me), nor is their debut their best album, but almost no one believes me, or they think I’m being sarcastic or silly or an asshole.  Now, “In a Big Country’ is mostly thought of as just another 80s song.  For me it was a gateway to a lifetime of listening to exciting and thoughtful music by an incredible band.

 

It’s sad to me that their sophomore LP, 1984’s Steeltown, became a forgotten and disparaged collection.  It debuted in the UK pop charts at #1 building on their debut’s momentum, butbit was considered too dense or impenetrable, and quickly dropped off the charts.  I agree, it is dense, but in the best of ways.  Every song finds the band on a collective high.  No instrument is featured, instead we get a group that are so locked in with each other that forty years after I first heard it, I still discover interesting nuances.  And, yes, Steeltown has never faded from my personal playlist.  One will never hear me say “I haven’t heard that in years” about this album.   I think it’s their best LP and it is easily one of my favorite albums ever by anyone.  

Despite the name of the album, Steeltown isn’t wholly about a factory town.  The title track dwells on this subject though as UK factories were struggling and closing laying off their workers in massive numbers at that time.  The title song is about the closing of a factory and the loss of thousands of steady incomes.  It’s a caustionary tale about putting one’s life and trust only in to their work.  These factories in many cases were the identity of many small towns where families worked for generations.  The closing lyric “Here I stand with my own kin / at the end of everything / finally the dream is gone / nothing left to hang upon” vividly declares the finality of the situation.  Adamson’s lyrics here are heartfelt and vivid.  He captures the visuals of factory workers going about their final day throughout, but the third verse has always especially struck me: “all the landscape was the mill / grim as a reaper with a heart like hell / with a river of bodies / flowing with the bell / here was the future for hands of skill.”  The sadness and dehumanization of these people is stark and the waste of their talents is tangible.  The denseness of the music here too is why I think it’s a strength and not a weakness.  “Steeltown” starts like the warming up of massive machinery before rumbling into the heavy repetition of the equipment.  The chorus feels like the earth is shaking beneath our feet.  Its powerful drama is undeniable.  The penultimate song “The Great Divide” builds upon the disillusionment of “Steeltown” by realizing the folly of placing so much trust in industry “Fire away / Far away / push the token door / lie away / steal a day / make the engine roar.”  This is where Steve Lillywhite’s production for the entire album is genius.  The band is recorded and mixed with very few noticeable studio tricks, which is honestly what hampers their debut.  Gone are the heavily processed drum sounds and the bagpipe sounding guitars.  Instead we’re left with an unadorned band creating amazing sounds dynamics and drama in a more organic way.

Musically, Big Country are hard to beat.  The twin guitar attack of Adamson (building on his signature guitar sound from his days with punk band The Skids) and Bruce Watson (the sole remaining original member still touring), along with the phenomenal skills of seasoned session musicians bassist Tony Butler and busy drummer Mark Brzezicki are tough to beat.  Normally, I’m not one to marvel at extreme musicianship, as I’ve always been drawn to the DIY artists who have paved their own way to unique and intriguing sounds.  However, this collective on this LP make my jaw drop.  There’s nothing showy here as they perform well together.  Their interplay is remarkable and though their individual parts are extremely detailed and intricate, it’s the synergy of those parts that make their music so huge sounding, life affirming, and unique.

Steeltown begins with the timeless lesson of “Flame of the West.”  It’s a cautionary tale of falling for a false prophet of sorts.  It’s based in the darkness of colonialism.  The bright, magnetic, and charming personality that offers promises of greatness, while slitting your throat.  “He had the face of an angel / and the voice of a saint / and though they fell behind him / I knew what it was he meant / his eyes were full of demons / as he made the message clear / he strode the world like Caesar / with a trident made of fear.”  This allegory, like Bad Religion’s “The Answer” and Sleater-Kinney’s “The Fox,” has fueled my skeptical view of things that seem too good to be true for most of my life.  Adamson’s lyrics are spot on, yet it’s the music that drives this song and I’m afraid I cannot ever do it justice.  Butler’s mid-range bass guitar opens this song with a brief moment of simple clarity, before a striking rhythm guitar stabs repeatedly, and then Brzezicki’s crashing drums come in and the two six strings lay down a buzz saw of power chords.  It’s an unholy racket full of urgency and precision.  Butler’s bass is phenomenal as he effortlessly guides the song with that melodic bassline, while drifting seamlessly to the low end to emphasize the blistering chorus.  Never before has a mid-tempo song felt to energetic and lightning quick!

That is until the other side of the record opens with “Tall Ships Go.”  It’s a song that I interpret as being about someone who has disturbing desperate dreams about loved ones lost, or perhaps mistakes made (“You spoke to me of things / of the shame that years will bring”).  It has such a frenetic energy that one can feel the importance and impact of these intense emotions.  And yet the cinematic guitar lead chimes over everything offering order to the chaos that is the emergency alarm of the other guitar and a bass part that is so busy that it is almost unbelievable.  That neither of these songs were chosen as promotional singles blows my mind.  They not only perfectly highlight this albums allure, but they are two of my favorite songs of all time.  Although, a pair of dated music videos may have cheapened their power and longevity. 

Nevertheless, Steeltown’s singles are all excellent.  “East of Eden” has an interesting resolve.  Many of the songs on Steeltown find the narrator yearning for guidance and answers, while “East of Eden” bounces along noticing that despite all of his worrying about where life’s answers are and how best to live his life (“I looked west in search of freedom / and I saw slavery / I looked east in search of answers / and I saw misery”), it all really comes down to the day to day (“I was waiting / I was watching / would it ever be before me / and I found that hope and a lucky card / were all I had to walk with me.”).  The rousing “Where the Rose is Sown” feels like it should’ve been a hit anthem as it improves on the vastness of their worldwide hit of “In a Big Country” with its call to arms chorus and the earworm guitar fills.  It’s about the perils of war and using the youth and future of one’s nation as pawns (“I wait here in this hole / playing poker with my soul / I hold this rifle close to me / it lights the way to keep me free”).  The final album single is also the album closing “Just a Shadow.”  Clearly a song about finding disappointment after building a life as one is expected, not necessarily how one wanted.  “It’s just a shadow of the woman you should be / like a garden in the forest / that the world will never see / you have no thought of answers / only questions to be filled / and it feels like hell” goes the incisive chorus.  It’s a perfect closing song, as it begins with a melancholy vibe and continually builds and builds gaining an anxious momentum.  It captures the urgency of realizing that maybe your spoon fed desires were really a betrayal and you’ve made the wrong decisions.  Now it might be too late.  Musically, this track might be the band’s most straightforward rock song on the album.  Butler’s busy mid-range bass elsewhere is transformed into a very basic low end da-dum da-dum da-dum repetitive drive, plus the song closes with an incredible Adamson guitar solo that is so fiery that it’s a shame that it fades out, yet that fade out adds to the frustration of the songs message.  “Just a Shadow” foreshadows the future direction of the band, as they would go on to record music more in this basic rock style. 

One time, many years ago, I put together a 90 minute mix tape made up of all album closing songs.  You know the ones, they have a certain vibe, like the sad uncomfortable goodbyes that we experience when parting from loved ones.  They often come in at slower tempos, and are reflective, and expansive.  I wanted to make the most dramatic and emotionally hard-hitting mix tape ever!  I think about that idea every time I listen to Steeltown, because it closes with three incredible songs that all are great candidates for album closers.  So, what did they do?  They strung them all back to back to back as a suite to elevate the epic nature of this collection.  “Rain Dance” comes on with a triumphant march musically, while the lyrics feel resigned to facing a generic life.  I don’t want to belabor my love of “The Great Divide,” but I don’t think I’ve ever heard another band that can create music that sounds more invigorating.  When the chorus of “Fire away / Far away” hits I don’t think I’ve ever not thrown a punch to the air as if I’ve just clinched some kind of hard fought victory.  Then, of course, I’ve already blathered on about the wonders of the closing “Just a Shadow” – the perfect final touch for this closing suite.

Finally, I have previously skipped the slower songs on Steeltown.  These two are not my favorites.  I find them a bit clumsy.  “Come Back to Me” has Adamson taking a young mother’s perspective as she laments the loss of her man.  Did he die, or abandon the young family?  And while it fits in with the sense of betrayal from relying on others that runs through most of these songs.  Yet the helplessness of the narrator feels disingenuous.  It is kind of boring to be honest.  It feels like a breather put in place to allow the listener to recover between the intensity of “Where the Rose is Sown” and “Tall Ships Go.”  “Girl with the Grey Eyes” is the more interesting of the two slow songs, yet still feels like a letdown.  Tony Butler’s mid-range bass guides the melody for this lush sounding love song.  It is that.  A basic love song that dwells on the fleeting nature of the best of love and wanting to hang on to those feelings.   It has an undeniably catchy chorus, like Big Country always cranked out with so much ease, though it’s not enough to lift it up to the heights of the rest of the LP. 

In many ways, Big Country’s Steeltown is a lot of things that I don’t often pursue with my music choices.  Yes, it was an early favorite for my music addiction, yet it’s not so much nostalgia that has kept it in my personal pantheon.  I have fond vivid memories attached to blasting the CD in my car with friends within the past ten years.  A lot of my old favorites do not get many listens anymore.  I couldn’t get enough of Love and Rockets when I was in high school, but I’m not sure I’ve listened to any of their albums since the “So Alive” single became an overplayed nightmare during the summer of 1989.  There’s something about Big Country’s music that captures my imagination and fuels me with an unrivaled energy and I am compelled to listen to them every so often.  Steeltown specifically speaks to me, with its overriding message of rejecting reliance on institutions and encouraging taking control of one’s own path.  Not worrying about fitting in or doing what one is “supposed” to do.  It’s not so easy.  If you’re unfamiliar with Big Country outside of singing along with “In a Big Country” while doing your laundry or driving to the grocery store, I recommend sitting down, putting headphones on and carving out fifty minutes to listen closely to Steeltown.  Forget all of my gibberish.  It’s great because it’s fun as hell to listen to, because it rocks!

(https://bigcountry.co.uk/)

Big Country "Just a Shadow"

The New Stone Age

 

It’s been said that if you dream about someone it means that that person has been thinking about you.  What exactly does that mean or how it could possibly be quantified?  It’s a nice notion, isn’t it?  Even after so many years Robert still thought of her often and she occasionally starred in his dreams.  He’d always hoped that she thought of him, because the notion made him feel important.

There she was.  She sat towards the far end of the bench with her legs angled so that her heels were touching the creaky hardwood floor with her toes pointed upward.  She was mostly a silhouette from Robert’s angle.  She was backlit by the bright white sky lighting the room from the big window on the opposite side of her.  The light made him think 1980s music video: "Turn around Bright Eyes."  She was looking up at him without fully turning her head. Despite the backlighting, he could clearly see her face.  Robert had always wondered if he ever ran into her in person, would he recognize her.  It had been over thirty years and he hadn’t actually formally met her back then, yet he had never forgotten her.

 

“Did you find her?” She asked him.  Her voice both startled and comforted him.  Her eyes connecting with his was almost more than he could handle.  He could feel his body jolt just with electricity before a rush of heat blasted through it.

“I thought that search ended years ago,” Robert turned his head to see his longtime friend Brian to his right respond for him.  “Can you help him find her?” Brian re-directed, turning his forearms like a hoops referee calling travelling urging this sequence to move along.

 

Robert had found her and she was directly in front of him.  He studied her face.  She was as stunning as he remembered.  He could feel his heart pounding in his chest, and even more so in his temples and down both sides of his neck.  He could not stop looking at her like he was trying to identify her as a suspect in a police lineup.  His jaw dangled as if held in place by a Slinky.  He was worried that he might pass out. 

 

“I have found her,” he blurted emphasizing his point. 

Considering the momentous amount of time that he had dreamt and imagined being close to her – at least a part of her life - he had never really known or figured out what he might say if it actually happened.  He knew long ago that it would never happen, so apparently he decided that he didn’t need a contingency plan.  There was that one time he thought he had seen her a couple of years after the brief time they had been at the same school, but that was so long ago that he finally stopped thinking that he might ever run across her in a public place. 

It was that one time when he was driving home over on the east side of town.  It was soon after sunrise.  A baked out late summer dawn.  He swore he had seen her jogging the opposite way on the sidewalk adjacent to the park fence.  She was jogging the opposite direction, so Robert slammed on the brake and cranked the steering wheel sharply and executed a 70s cop show spinout.  Actually, that’s how he’d imagined it.  Instead he drove carefully to the next block, turned his car around safely and drove back toward the park.  No one was in sight.  He had been awake for several days straight and had just spent the previous night at a 24 hour bowling alley with some friends – bowling and drinking, or drinking and bowling.  He was fully aware of the creepiness of the scenario, and chose to drive away, and ponder if he had actually seen her, or if she had been a figment of his imagination.  She was never far from his thoughts.  

When they shared a campus, he had wanted to say something – anything – but he did not.  That was the problem.  Robert never said anything to her and that seemed to be his decision, which is why he knew he wouldn’t be a part of her life.  They shared the same campus for a few months and he would see her around every so often.  He had never been drawn to anyone like that before.  Yes, he thought she was incredibly pretty, but it was more than that.  For some reason, he felt like she understood him in a way that he had he never felt before.  He did not know what it was.  Her friendly disposition made her seem like an accepting and understanding person, but he didn’t know anything about her. 

Robert didn’t take care of himself, or particularly like himself.  Yet he wanted to be there for her in any way possible.  He felt it in every fiber of his being.  This was all new to him and he didn’t know how to reconcile his thoughts and feelings.  For the first time in his life, he had the desire to allow his guardrails to lower, or so he kept telling himself this.  It couldn’t have been true, because he did none of these things.  He couldn’t even muster a passing “hello.”  His inaction being that much more frustrating because he realized that he wasn’t a draw due of his good looks or magnetic personality.  Robert needed good timing and a lot of luck.

Aside from occasionally falling into lonely teen angst stretches, he had always wanted to spend most of his time alone.  He didn’t think he could ever relate to anyone, so he knew that, though this exciting and surprising new presence was in his periphery, he would likely not try to meet her – a decision Robert had always regretted.

This was the crux of why she had haunted him for so many years after their first encounter.  He had made no effort.  Here she was, a dream he didn’t know he had had come true, and yet he was content to be thrilled by a distant passing sighting of her once every couple of days.  He did not make an effort to try to actually get to know her.  What could’ve been the reason?  Looking back, his inaction feels an insane decision.  Sure he was terrified of being cruelly rejected and having that image he had of her burst like an overfilled water balloon, along with his strangely erratic pride.  He was also terrified of making a tragic fool of himself in all the worst possible ways – a creepy, overbearing, neurotic, desperate way, which all were incredibly accurate – except he never thought of himself as creepy, but that’s not for him to judge.

Robert had once been told that he might be afraid of success.  This had been a revelation for him.  Was he afraid of success?  Despite not being very happy with his lot in life, he was indeed afraid to take risks and threaten the protective isolative shield he had worked so many years to build.  In retrospect, he had noticed patterns, where almost any chances he had ever had of possibly accomplishing things he had worked to achieve, he would sabotage, or turn against them. 

The more he thought about it, the more he began to realize his history of avoidance and obstruction.  Robert remembered when he was offered a great job as an assistant manager for the campus station, but turned it down, because they didn’t hire his friend and dorm mate along with him.  He remembered missing the final interview for a scholarship to that engineering trade school he was about to attend and was very expensive.  After learning he was only competing with one other, he felt excited, but still assured that he would miss the final interview.   There was also that sound engineer apprenticeship he skirted at the Bad Animals recording studio in Seattle.  There was even that time in school when a very pretty girl he didn’t recognize who pulled him aside one day and asked him out and he scurried away like the frightened cat from those weird French skunk cartoons (Pepé Le Pew).  There were several more examples that raced through his thoughts like projectiles from a missile battery firework.  What the hell was he doing?  He had always been filled with regrets - not from his failures, but from the things he gave up on, or when he didn’t try.

 

The problem was, he did not know why he so often had chosen to turn away from opportunity.  There was that internship he had taken about fifteen years prior, where he was given most of each week’s new music releases all in exchange for a simple paragraph write up about each one.  It seemed like a long time dream come true, yet he remembered how quickly he began to hate music and writing – his two main passions.  Instead he chose to stick with his normal job, full of frustrating personalities, insane tasks with even more absurd deadlines.  Yet he clung to that job with an unbreakable grip, despite having little interest.

“Are you going to ask me?” Her brown eyes focused intently on Robert’s.  He dropped his head.  Feeling overwhelmed.

Robert had never spoken to her.  He had had his chances all those years ago.  She had spoken to him a couple of times with a passing greeting in her sing-song voice, but he could never quite form the words and now, over thirty years later she is still haunting his dreams.  He is not so full of himself to believe that he could’ve won her heart back then and in reality he is pretty certain that he wouldn’t have, nor had he been ready, or would ever be ready to do so.

Aside from the most extreme examples, he felt that he was living a normal life.  When opportunities had risen, he would find a way to at least try for them.  In his work life he generally found himself able to raise his stock enough to earn and accept promotions.  In addition, he had found himself actively dating and continuing his search for a long term loving romantic relationship.  However, he was not passionate about these things.  He did them because he felt like he was supposed to do them.  He felt no intense interest with his career, so none of the responsibilities he accumulated felt important.  His biggest goal with work was to not have to bring it home.  His attempts at relationships went similarly.  He often felt uncomfortable and wasn’t sure if he wanted a relationship.  He was not fully present with them, because he wasn’t with her, or his invented image of her.  It was no secret why none of his relationship efforts lasted long. 

All he wanted to know now is how to fix this.  What is it that is often said: knowing is half the battle?  It’s true that recognizing his tendencies as a problem could help him avoid these issues in the dwindling future.  It was clear that this problem of sabotaging potential success was deep-seeded. 

“My life sucks!  Boohoo!  I’m Bobby and I’m great at everything and don’t try to be!” Brian shouted as he pretended to rub his eyes with his fists. 

“That’s not what I me-,” Robert stopped himself.  “I do not assume any of those things were destined to work out, but why was I hell bent on taking myself out of or never entering the running?”

“Blah Blah Blah!”  Brian continued unmoved by Robert’s clarification.

Ignoring Brian, Robert focused his eyes on her sitting on that worn church-style pew directly in front of him.  The dusty old stained wood stench overwhelmed his senses once he took in a rapid deep breath.  She returned his stare with a slight smirk on her lips.  A flash of heat rose from his gut straight up into his face.  He began to feel unsteady and placed his hand on the back of the bench for balance. 

“What’s wrong with you?!” Brian shouted at him with what sounded like legitimate rage.  He turned his head to see a fading silhouette of Brian lurking in the shadows of the room.

“It’s more than that isn’t it?” her voice recaptured all of his attention.  “It’s not so much that you’ve been afraid of success,” she paused keeping this important wisdom from him for at least a few more seconds.  “Why didn’t you at least try to get to know me?  Are you afraid of the responsibility that success might bring?”  She closed her eyes and bowed her head, as if she were praying.  “It’s easier for you to always have me as a ‘what could’ve been,’ instead of ‘someone you blew it with.’  As it is now, I will always be perfect in your head,” she grinned and closed her eyes as she let him absorb these words.

“This dumpy chick is right, you know?” Brian interjected.

“Why are you here?!”

“You love beating yourself up.”

She looked back up at him and added, “You don’t want the responsibility that might bring success, or that success might bring.  However you define success.”

He wasn’t sure if he knew how he defined success, but he was pretty sure that it had negative connotations to him.

Next thing he knew, he could feel his pulse pounding in his temples.  He was lying on his back gasping for air.  She had taken over his dreams yet again.

“Do other people have dreams like this,” Robert wondered in a quiet mumble

He also wondered if these dreams had continued to recur every few months for years, because he had a masochistic need to continuously poke his most painful emotional bruises so that they would never heal.  Or maybe it’s a realization that he has avoided achieving all of the biggest goals he had ever set for himself and now it’s too late.  Unlike the previous dreams of him encountering her in the present time that he had experienced, this one was not full of embarrassment.  This felt different.  He did not wake up feeling defeated.