But when I came to pick my top ten favourite songs of all-time ever, it's not one of those tracks that I chose. Not an album track at all.
Wonderland. I listen to it still and it means something different. Every day. Like all the songs on the list it complements the others on the list. It is also musically brilliant. How could a guitarist like Stuart Adamson not produce something as flawlessly brilliant every time he picked up his guitar. I have not an ounce of musical ability in my body but I know a musical genius when I hear one.
Just listen to the first 80 seconds of this. And in his younger days there was a joy to him, almost.
Such a sad demise.
But Wonderland. Lyrically poetic, and of course it's about loss, so I would love it. The first time I heard it blaring out of the speakers in the Union Bar, it spoke to me of how Uni wasn't quite, or even close to, the nirvana I was expecting.
Later it spoke to me about the loss of idealism, hope, even youth. Now it reminds me of my parents.
I don't know what it was really about, I don't want to know. I just want to wallow in the searing edge of Stuart's guitar and his soulful lyrics. You can search YouTube for a studio version, but as with most Big Country music, the live versions are the best.
Guy
ReplyDeleteMy favourite Big Country song as well. I always marvelled at the way the song just 'fits together'... drums, bass and yes those guitars.
And the emotion, oh the emotion. I guess we're around the same age so it speaks to us in a way that maybe others of a different age group don't see....
I saw Big Country live three times. When they played this at the Hammersmith Odeon I'll never, ever, forget looking around me at the others in the audience, and then down on the packed stalls from my balcony position, and feeling part of something... what I was part of I don't know, but it was an amazing, and somewhat unsettling experience.
Mr Adamson was taken from us far, far too early.