3 May 1986
I had forgotten that the studio version of U2’s ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’ features a prominent fiddle, which just goes to show how little it’s been played on any radio within my hearing. ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’ was where a big Celtic stadium rock sound became, if not fashionable, then at least profitable. Big Country weren’t as pompous and ridiculous as their compatriots Simple Minds but, like Fisherman’s Blues-era Waterboys, they ploughed themselves into a narrow furrow from which they never escaped but which the world soon left behind. (Meanwhile, also in mid-’80s Scotland were The Blue Nile, making two stylish pop albums that will surely outlive us all.)
‘Look Away’ isn’t the fun, cheesy one where Stuart Adamson goes “Sha!” and the guitars sound like banks of bagpipes; you’re thinking of ‘In A Big Country’. This one, their only chart-topper in either the UK or Ireland but quite possibly also a smash hit in rural Scotland, draws on the same the outlaw-on-the-run romance as Thin Lizzy’s version of ‘Whiskey-With-An-E In The Jar’ and Maggie Reilly’s Mike Oldfield’s ‘Moonlight Shadow’. However, while its tilt at epic guitar rock probably aspires to be U2, instead ‘Look Away’ sounds more like formulaic, unimaginative, chug-along Status Quo – a band who, incredibly, we’ll see twice at number one in Ireland during 1986. Less ‘look away’ than ‘cover your ears’.
