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TOP TEN BIG COUNTRY B-SIDES
PART 1


9 June 2012
1:09:42




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Introduction:

  • Tom announces a change to the format of the show with the inclusion of Svein from Norway.
  • Tom talks about the topic of counting down our personal top 10 b-sides, and about how we didn't agree on what constitutes a b-side.
  • Svein introduces himself, talks about how he discovered Big Country and their appeal to him. He also talks about how unlikely it was for him to latch on to Big Country to begin with.
  • Svein talks about how the band going on with Mike helped heal some of the wounds from Stuart's passing. Tom agrees.
  • Svein stubbornly refuses to listen to live clips of new songs until he's got the actual album, while Tom admits to impatiently caving in.
  • T&S talks about the incredible amount of b-sides that Big Country released, and about collecting, searching for and tracking down these elusive songs.

The countdown begins!

  • Svein's #10 - Belief In the Small Man (including Bass Dance), and how that song fits the two main themes of the Steeltown album.
  • Tom's #10 - Can You Feel the Winter - the last BC epic, which Stuart didn't even remember when asked about it during a chat room session
  • Svein's #9 - Balcony, with a discussion about songs that don’t sound like the band's main output
  • Tom's #9 - You Lose Your Dreams, and discussion on how the band had all the fantastic R.E.L.-material, yet ended up with the watered down Peace In Our Time.
  • Svein's #8 – Eastworld, and the revelation that both Svein and Tom feel that replacing the drum machine with a live drum track would detract from the song

"Eastworld" live from Zaandam in 2002 (Peters, Watson, Butler, and Brzezicki)

  • Tom's #8 - Promised Land, and how the band producing themselves for PIOT might not have been a bad idea
  • Svein's #7 - Living By Memory, without question the darkest song Stuart wrote, yet one of the most real and deeply touching
  • Tom's #7 - Winter Sky, and how there wasn't a throwaway lyric back in those days