In this Place

Words and music by STUART ADAMSON
From the BIG COUNTRY album
PEACE IN OUR TIME (1988)

The classic exile's song.

All the years I spent in this place
The friends I knew here,
I loved every face
I loved the smoke, the heat and the noise
But the profit's too small
For the black-suited boys

Oh angel, it's coming down stone by stone
It's breaking up home by home
Take it away, take it away

In this place I will lay my life down
In this place I will let you carry me
As I age so my learning grows
I still touch the vision
I still smell the rose in this place

All the years I lived in this place
The people I knew here,
I loved every face
I loved the parties, the funerals and fights
The supermarket needs my land
I have no rights

Oh angel, it's coming down stone by stone
It's breaking up home by home
Take it away, take it away

In this place I will lay my life down
In this place I will let you carry me
As I age so my learning grows
I still touch the vision
I still smell the rose in this place

All the years I spent in this place
The children we raised here,
I loved this country, the land of my birth
But how much am I wnated
How much am I worth

Oh angel, it's coming down stone by stone
It's breaking up home by home
Take it away, take it away

In this place I will lay my life down
In this place I will let you carry me
As I age so my learning grows
I still touch the vision
I still smell the rose in this place

Chance

Words and music by STUART ADAMSON
From the 1983 album THE CROSSING
by Big Country (1983)

This song by Big Country reads like a story of the bleak post-industrial heartlands of Scotland as might be told by William McIlvanney. I grew up in the same sort of background as the girl whose tale forms the tale of the song, although by then the jobs had gone: but I got a chance to get away. I can't help wondering if Stuart Adamson was talking about himself in the words of the chorus.

All the rain came down
On a cold new town
As it carried you away
From your father's hand
That always seemed like a fist
Reaching out to make you pay

He came like a hero from the factory floor
With the sun and moon as gifts
But the only son you ever saw
Were the two he left you with

Oh Lord where did the feeling go
Oh Lord I never felt so low

Now the skirts hang so heavy around your head
That you never knew you were young
Because you played chance with a lifetime's romance
And the price was far too long

Oh Lord where did the feeling go
Oh Lord I never felt so low