This week, the theme for Song Lyric Sunday is about enjoying outdoors: that’s something I do from time to time but, in the opinion of some, not enough.

Oddly, the first artiste that sprang to mind was John Denver, who certainly made a decent living singing of the great outdoors. However, I was never a huge fan so I looked elsewhere.

Very soon, I remembered this: ‘In A Big Country”. It’s by a group called Big Country and is the opening track of their debut album ‘The Crossing’, released in July 1983. Big Country was formed in the town (now city) of Dunfermline in Fife, which is about a fifteen minute drive from where we lived at the time. Obviously it got plenty of airplay – and Scotland is unquestionably a big country

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

In a big country, dreams stay with you
Like a lover’s voice fires the mountainside
Stay alive

I thought that pain and truth were things that really mattered
But you can’t stay here with every single hope you had shattered

I’m not expecting to grow flowers in a desert
But I can live and breathe and see the sun in wintertime

In a big country, dreams stay with you
Like a lover’s voice fires the mountainside
Stay alive

In a big country, dreams stay with you
Like a lover’s voice fires the mountainside
Stay alive

So take that look out of here, it doesn’t fit you
Because it’s happened doesn’t mean you’ve been discarded
Pull up your head off the floor, come up screaming

Cry out for everything you ever might have wanted
I thought that pain and truth were things that really mattered
But you can’t stay here with every single hope you had shattered

I’m not expecting to grow flowers in a desert
But I can live and breathe and see the sun in wintertime

In a big country, dreams stay with you
Like a lover’s voice fires the mountainside
Stay alive

Written by Stuart Adamson, Mark Brzezicki, Tony Butler and Bill Watson

Song Lyric Sunday 28 June 2026