I’ve been in love with a band called Big Big Train since late 2011. It was very many years since I got so moved by music as I have been by the music of BBT. Many great posts have been published here at Progarchy about the music and lyrics from the pens of David Longdon and Greg Spawton. So now it’s my pleasure to here in my blog premiere make a little detour to the world of birds… Why, you may think, is that? Well for starters I couldn’t add much new to what’s already been said about the themes in the music and lyrics and then I’m a birdlover and have been so delighted by the use of birds in the lyrics and even in songtitles (Brambling). It’s apparent that the songwriters are quite familiar with some of the common birds in Britain (they’re also common in Sweden. I mean the fantastic Hedgehoppers’ Chorus line where blackbird, redwing, song thrush and yellowhammer are mentioned is something that I can connect to as well. Those are birds that are typical for the Swedish countryside too. And they are all birds that signal springtime by letting us enjoy their melodic songlines from March onwards until Midsummer or something.

The thing that distinguishes Big Big Train from many other bands and artists is that they not only use the general expression “birds” in the lyrics but actual names of real species. You also find the partridge in the lyrics on Uncle Jack and Hedgerow. This precise way of describing what kinds of birds that inhabit their lyrical landscapes is something that put Big Big Train in the same league as literary giants such as our very own (Swedish giant) August Strindberg who was a keen naturalist and knew much about birds and plants. In his novels you always find the names of actual species as well, not only the general terms “birds” and “flowers” for instance. This way of namedropping species adds much to the feel of a very alive lyrical landscape within the musical landscape that is Big Big Trains. And for me who know what all those different birds look like, when they can be expected to come back from their winter quarters, when they start singing and also what they sound like when they do it, the picture widens and gets deeper colours so to speak.

So is birds in music a novelty then? Of course not. We all remember the second movement of Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony (No. 6) where several birds lend their voices to the great master’s musical creativeness. There we can hear the nightingale, the quail and also the cuckoo.  Within the bird theme Big Big Train also connect in a very fine way with Vaughan Williams. How is that? Well, Mr Williams wrote that absolutely wonderful piece of music called The Lark Ascending which makes us think about the eighties masterpiece Skylarking by the wonderful band XTC whose guitarist Dave Gregory nowadays as we all know resides in…Big Big Train. Skylarking is by the way such a fantastic album title. For me the word skylarking doesn’t actually mean what it’s supposed to mean (playing boisterously or to sport or something like that) but to lie flat on the back in the sun on a green meadow watching the skylark hanging there on its invisible string singing its heart out about spring, love and joy underneath the deep-blue dome….but that’s a meaning I’ve made up all by myself. But the music of Big Big Train’s always makes me want to go skylarking – in my meaning of the word.