SINGLE REVIEW - HAYLEY MCKAY - IN A BIG COUNTRY

Technically not a single review as not sure if is actually slated to yet become one, but hopefully if Hayley McKay has any doubts about her cover of "In A Big Country" then this may tip her over the edge into releasing it.

Born from the embers of The Skids, Stuart Adamson formed Big Country and for a while they were nudging with U2 and Simple Minds to be the next big thing.

If I'm totally honest between the bombastic drums, the bagpipe guitars and Stuart's at times impenetrable accent, I was never really sure at times what they were singing, and certainly never took the time to truly try to piece it altogether.

Eddi Reader had a go at extracting the inner tune and Hayley with the aid of Jack Watson on keys and Jonnie Bunce on fiddle has simplified it even further. With just a simple piano introduction Hayley dives in finding the real meaning in the song and bringing it to the fore.

"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"

It is a lot more poetic than perhaps we'd ever considered.

The chorus see the sound enhanced further by the fiddle

"In a big country dreams stay with you

Like a lovers voice, fires the mountainside - stay alive!

I thought pain and truth were things that really mattered

But you can't stay here with every single

Hope you had shattered"

There's a couple of neat touches that show that Hayley is more than just a passing fan, the violin picking out the famous bagpipe guitar refrain and notes in her post directing folk towards a Mike Peters documentary, who would later take on the mantle of lead singer from Stuart and who also recently sadly passed.

Maybe it'll never become a single but it was to good to let slip by unnoticed.....