Meg Ivy Brunning
Music journalist and photographer based in Cardiff (for now). Just trying to write about music that moves me in someway. If you do wish to find me though, I’ll usually be tucked away listening to music, talking to an animal on the street like a modern day Snow White or at a gig somewhere!
Put simply, ‘DRAGGED UP A HILL (and thrown down the other side)’, the latest track from Big Special is moving in so many ways.
Whenever I think of Big Special, I think of post-punk, honest home truths and creating big statements with their music. Loud and brash, speaking into my headphones with a kind of certainty I used to fake having at 20.
After having one hell of a year, with the surprise release of their second album ‘NATIONAL AVERAGE.’ and following an exciting collaboration with Sleaford Mods, the duo of Joe Hicklin and Callum Anderson aren’t hitting the breaks anytime soon.
Their newest single,‘DRAGGED UP A HILL (and thrown down the other side)’ proves their depth by taking a breathtaking step away from their expected sound.
The track is a much softer, reflective turn that still demands and grabs your attention. If you’re braced for a post-punk barrage like I was, then prepare to be surprised. The instrumentation is minimal, but intentional — allowing space for the track’s true emotional core to ring through and true: the singular power of Joe Hicklin’s voice.
It’s in this space, somewhere between the first verse and chorus that I realise this single is going to become essential listening for me. Joe’s vocal delivery carries something inside of it that feels so heartfelt, so real (I hate that word, but honestly it couldn’t be more true). A unique grit, that has always been there, but it’s stripped back, holding an emotion that I rarely get to hear in music nowadays. The kind of sound that gives you chills down the spine and, honestly, might make you cry (or is that just me?!) — a raw, beautiful realisation that you can try all you might but sometimes it really does feel as though you’re just not getting anywhere.
A sentiment that Joe explains when asked about the track: “It’s about the old Labouring days and the feeling of getting nowhere in love and work, despite the graft. Disclaimer: Don’t listen whilst drunk.” It’s a truth we all grapple with from time to time — that feeling of being tirelessly “dragged up a hill and thrown down the other side”. The power here, however, isn’t in what some could translate into sadness, but in the stark recognition in the piercing lyrics: “I’ve got time and no money, oh, money and no time.”
Listening to this track brings about a strange act of nostalgia, as most things do for me nowadays. It reminds me of watching snow fall onto the ground from the window at my Nana’s house, the dog by my side also trying to peep out of the window and my Grandad is behind me looking for Scrabble so we can beat Nana together. Or maybe it’s returning to a place that you once loved so deeply — could be your hometown, the familiar road that leads you to the park or the Co-op. Or even the old flat I lived in on Thurlow Park Road. Having to push myself up the hill, sirens wailing around me as I realised that life is precious in all stages — even when you have no money or time … or lots of money and time. Or both. Or neither. Or … well I actually don’t know.
All I do know is that Big Special are back in a way that they never left. With another song to make you ponder, look out of a train window as everything blurs in front of you and think back to being 20 and feeling like you were certain about everything in your life. You realise now at 26, you weren’t as certain as you thought you were, but that’s okay. Now you don’t have to fake anything. ‘DRAGGED UP A HILL (and thrown down the other side)‘ is a beautiful, undeniable truth that we all needed to hear. Or, at least I did.
Give it a listen and remember to just feel it. You never know where it will take you. Oh and like Joe said, “Don’t listen while drunk”. Okay?
Listen to ‘DRAGGED UP A HILL (and thrown down the other side)‘ here: