1
Dec
Song of the Week: The Sailor
Topic: TV, Movies, and Music
I’m sure that those of you who know me well are astounded and amazed that I didn’t debut the “Song of the Week” on my blog with a Big Country song. And that I even resisted the urge for a second week. But I can resist it no longer.
This week I have for you a song that has been one of my favorites since high school: The Sailor. It is the last song on the third Big Country album, The Seer. It meant enough to me that I even sang the first half of it at my wedding reception (the first and probably last time I’ll ever sing in public).
When I started my toppa.com site, back in 1996, one of the first things I did was put up some Big Country pages (fan sites were a novelty then). I also managed the Big Country email discussion list for a few years. I no longer update my Big Country pages, but I recommend looking at the first page if you want to get a sense of why I like this band so much. At that time there were a few other fan sites as well, and we actually ended up in an email fight with Ian Grant, the band’s manager. He was threatening to go after us for copyright infringement for using the band’s logo, etc. He thought the only Big Country web site should be the official one, which of course didn’t exist yet (and wasn’t finally created until, I think, 2000). We ultimately just ignored him and he left us alone. He simply didn’t get the web at all - instead of realizing the potential for free marketing from enthusiastic fans, he just wanted us to take our sites down. The sad thing is, we probably would have done anything he wanted, except that.
December 13th, 2005 at 5:29 am
Hi there - I came across your blog and simply had to comment. I am also a huge fan of “The Sailor” — I think it is one of BC’s finest moments and have always wondered why it doesn’t get more mentions on fan sites (also, it doesn’t seem to feature on any live recordings — though I imagine would be hard to get right live).
I must point you to Big Country’s appearance on my own blog top 10 songs - I eventually went for “Close Action” from The Crossing, but did mention “the Sailor”, as you will see:
http://bidsta.blogspot.com/2005/07/no-7-close-action-big-country.html
Also mentioned BC in a post on my top 10 guitar pieces:
http://bidsta.blogspot.com/2005/11/holy-guitar-solo.html
regards