Big Country - The Lost Patrol (Stuart and Bruce, 1981)

When Stuart Adamson first got together with Bruce Watson and started writing songs in May and June of 1981, a room in the Townhill Community Centre in Dunfermline was used as a makeshift studio. There as just a duo and armed with guitars, a drum machine, keyboard and a Tascam 4 track portastudio, they wrote and recorded the first 9 songs that would set the foundation of the new collaboration that would come be known as Big Country.
Harvest Home, Heart and Soul, Angle Park, Wake, Lost Patrol, We Could Laugh, Echoes, The Crossing and Inwards were those first 9 songs.
Officially, only Harvest Home, Angle Park and We Could Laugh have been released. (The Crossing 30th Anniversary Deluxe CD)
The full version of We Could Laugh can be found here: • Big Country - We Could... )
This is 'The Lost Patrol' from those recordings - the "the" would subsequently be dropped from the official title, becoming, simply, Lost Patrol - the Big Country classic we all know and love but here it is in its most embryonic form.
The last verse reads -
"We stand as thick as vines
Though the fruit is torn away
There is no beauty here friends
just death and rank decay..."
This is the only version where Stuart sings 'rank' decay, it was changed shortly after to 'dark' decay, even though it appears this way on the liner notes of The Crossing, where a few songs had lyrics that never matched up with what was on the album. This was due to an administrative error where Stuart's original lyrics from his hand-written lyric book were transcribed and then sent straight to the record company without first being checked that they were in fact correct. Harvest Home, The Storm and Inwards are other examples from the official lyrics in the liner sleeves.
Celebrating 40 years of Big Country - 1981 - 2021.

[@arejaycee5484]

Brilliant 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿💙🤍

[@chrispetty4574]

Big country is the best band ever

[@chrispetty4574]

Thank you 😊🙏 start Adamson and big country you guys are the best band 💪 ever 🙏❤️

[@bigcountry7852]

Still listening to Stuart and big country, 👌 Glad the new set up are doing good, Not the same for me,no disrespect to anyone,

[@roberthumphreys8454]

Sounds ahead of that time! Big Country live forever

[@poppyhimbo]

wow...amazing

[@geordiejohnny]

Brilliant version

[@salihkasap3770]

Blimey what a find , still loving them

[@stephenlynch5143]

Most definitely

[@andymiles3886]

Almost completely unrecognisable!!!What a find thanks for posting.

[@1802Sacha]

I think they were incapable of making "simple" music. The guys are always virtuous and Stuart, there's no word in the dictionary to describe him, he had the gift!

[@Mudge07]

We often skip to the creativity of the MkII line-up without realising that the roots of the band and songs were in a rudimentary form years earlier. It sounds like Bruce had more vocal input on this than I've heard before, replay at x1.25 speed for an album-ready tempo.

[@kippen64]

Love this.

[@johnnybhoy9578]

Brilliant, but does anyone here the chords to big city

[@mistergormsby1974]

Can anyone tell me what the background/ inspiration/ meaning for this song is? Its haunted me for 30 years.

[@BC1000Stars]

Stuart's thoughts on the things associated with being in a successful band that aren't anything to do with music. PR, record company parties, the press... all the things he constantly despised but, over time, got better at dealing with. See how you go with that interpretation.

[@BC1000Stars]

I recently discovered an old interview where Stuart mentioned it being about “not being a part of the “in crowd” so there you go… a little extra info. 😊