Dire Straits

I thinks it’s pretty much impossible for anyone who was bought up in the 80’s to not know who Dire Straits is. Hold up there nay sayers….let me be super clear here,  I never said you liked them, I said you were aware of them. I’m fairly determined to start this review out like this because over the years, I’ve had some really…*thinks carefully about how to phrase the next sentence*…interesting conversations about Dire Straits and their….ability. [How did I do? Diplomatic enough?]

So let me expand here. I don’t thinks it’s any secret that I grew up with a whole variety of musical influences. I’m a big believer that unbeknownst to our future selves, we simply move through our young years listening to whatever resonates with us. If you were a young teen in the 80’s, just like every generation, you were offered up all sorts of music, but unlike today’s world, finding music outside the major radio stations wasn’t something as ingrained into us as it is for todays teens.

But I will say this, it did force us to choose from the music that was offered up. For some, it was Madonna or Michael Jackson. Others it was NWA, U2 or Poison. For me, my music preferences at that stage of my life always seemed to gravitate toward artists or bands that were more central. Bands that sat right in the middle of the genre as opposed to the ones that pushed boundaries. Why? I dunno. If I really think about it, its probably because I was just a young man trying to find an emotionally safe space, and if music does one thing and one thing alone, its the ability to help you find the bubble you feel most comfortable in.

A lot of that changed as I grew older and became more confident, but this story isn’t about that time, this is about opening my eyes to new music as a pre teen and intuitively searching for music that made my heart sing….and thats where I found Dire Straits.

If you’re not a Dire Straits fan, its very possible [and entirely probable] that the one song you think of when their name is mentioned is the 1985 hit ‘Money for Nothing’. Admittedly, it was their biggest hit and helped launch the popularity of the newly arrived MTV Europe when it launched in 87′, but as that boy who would listen to EON FM and 3XY as one of the only places to get any music from, the magic of that song quickly faded with the station managers insistence to play it over, and over, and over, and over…enough already…I get it, he’s getting his chics for free!

But it was definitely enough to strike a chord inside me. Enough to begin a journey to hear some of their other stuff, and what I found was a band that had a sound that melded rock, blues, folk and a little country with lyrics that shaped touching and heartfelt stories. So for me, the Dire Straits story kind of happened in reverse. One of those artists you discover in their latter stages and you get to meander through their back catalogue to find some real treasures.

So the album most everyone knows is ‘Brothers In Arms’. It truly is a great album. Went to No.#1 in a bucketload of countries and apart from the certain track that won’t be named twice [I’m afraid that if I mention it, the commercial radio stations will somehow pick up on it and the red flashing Dire Straits button will begin flashing and they’ll get the go ahead to begin their infatuation all over again] spurned tracks like ‘So Far Away’, Walk of Life’ & Your Latest Trick’. All great songs….kinda…

Let me explain. If you don’t like Dire Straits, I figure you’ve struggled to get through this much of the post with sighing heavily every third paragraph. But, if you don’t mind a bit of the old Straits, you’ll understand where I’m going with this.

As you might have been able to tell with my less than glowing appraisal for their biggest hit, I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with these guys. More love than hate to be honest, but if you stand back from their catalogue there always seemed to be a really clear distinction between their ‘radio hits’ and their more meaningful tracks. Obvious ‘Money for No…’ *…ahhh, nearly fucked it*… falls right in to the radio hits category. But I’m pretty sure you could easily chuck in ‘Walk of Life’, ‘Heavy Fuel’ and their shittest song ever, ‘Twisting by the Pool’.

Its not that I wont listen to these tracks, but it’s because I know their old songs so well that I just don’t make time for them. Ever.

My turning point in really falling in love with Mark Knopfler and his backing band [we all know its true] was when I was in my early teens and I came across a cassette tape of the album ‘Love Over Gold’. I’ve said it many times, but it was an era where music wasn’t as readily available as it is now and you listened to anything you were exposed to really, and it wasn’t like anyone else in my family was screaming for me to give the tape back, so it just ended up in my collection, which in turn ended up in my tape deck as I would head off to sleep. This is where I fell in love with these Brothers In Arms .

Unlike anything I’d really been exposed to at the time, this album only had five tracks on it. Thirteen years old and I hadn’t ever really been exposed to any long meandering tracks before. Mainly 3 minute pop songs that were as disposable as the rest of the 80’s were. And if you [yes, I’m talking directly to you now] have ever spent any time in your life going to sleep to any sort of music on a regular basis, you’ll know as well as I do that that shit stays with you. Forever.

It was those quiet teen nights that Dire Straits helped me leave the angst aside for a short time. The first track off this album is a song called ‘Telegraph Road’. I don’t expect many people to really know it that well, but its a 14m 17s track that tells the evolutionary story of a city that started as single man who built his home in the wilderness, and as my eyes would be dropping off to sleep, I would listen more intently than I would at any other time and would follow the story, but mainly how Knopfler navigates this masterpiece with his Fender Strat with a sound that was as much craftsmanship as it was poet.

From then on in I was a fan. I think that aside from the aforementioned hiccups, their ability to make pop songs that bridge that soft rock/blues/folk genre is really quite remarkable. The rest of the ‘Love Over Gold’ album is now somehow imprinted on my DNA. ‘Private Investigations’ is a beautiful ballad that just showcases his guitar skills. Same can be said to the title track ‘Love Over Gold’, but with more emphasis in his songwriting skills.

So with all this love I have for Mark and his boys, let’s not avoid the elephant in the room….they’re Dire Straits. They’re Pop Rock. I totally get it, but I will say that they know how to put a fucking great track together. From the up beat ‘Lady Writer’, ‘Down to the Waterline’ & ‘Tunnel of Love’ to the slower and more jazzy ‘Your Latest Trick’, ‘News’ & ‘So Far Away’, they always promoted a beautiful balance between Knopfler’s unique guitar sound with his laid back singing style that was more reminiscent of a club singer on his third shift for the night.

I don’t think my inner teen will let me get through this write up without mentioning a little track from the 1981 album ‘Making Movies’ called ‘Romeo & Juliet’. I’ll lay my cards on the table here. I was a little bit of a hopeless romantic when I was young. *ahem…when you were young Mykie?*…anyhow, maybe I was a little more hopeless then than I am now, but it wouldn’t have been a rare occurrence to find me playing my air guitar in my room pretending to sing to an imaginary girl who would fall back in love with me because I’m singing this romantic ballad to her a la John Cusack belting out Peter Gabriels ‘In Your Eyes’ through his Ghetto Blaster in Say Anything.

I very much remember putting this Shakespeare inspired song on a mixed tape for a girl who I more than fancied. I’m not entirely sure if I every got the courage to give it to her, but I know the lyrics to ‘Romeo & Juliet’ like the back of my hand. Its hard to negate the impact that these songs have on our lives. Sometimes its tracks we choose. Sometimes they just turn up and introduce themselves at the right time for us to wrap it in hope…or love…or disappointment…or hurt. But I think that this is why music is so powerful, because it will hold all of those emotions for us and keep on keeping on. Until the day where I simply look at them as old friends.

Which is where we come to possibly their most iconic song. As Billy Joel is ‘The Piano Man’, Bowie is ‘The Thin White Duke’ and Eric Clapton is ‘Slowhand’, Dire Straits will forever be known as ‘The Sultans of Swing’. The demo got them their first recording contact, which obviously then appeared on their debut album ‘Dire Straits’ in 1978.

Possibly the one song that continues to be played more today than ever before, its a song that if not everyone appreciates, at least knows. There is a reason I left this one till last, and its got everything to do with Mark Knopfler and the way he makes his way around a guitar. For those who have never spent anytime actually listening to this track [and I mean really listening], there is something that sets it aside from not only all the other DS songs, but everyone else’s as well.

This track is the epitome of of how Knopfler actually plays his guitar. If you listen to the way he sings it, during the entire track, his singing never waivers from the lazy laid back approach he emulates while the guitar sounds as though its just a back up singer waiting to make it big…which it does. Twice. First at 3:28 and the second toward the end of the track at 4:58. Both solos feel like an old sweater that never wears out. Both clear as a bell on his 61′ Strat with not a hint of trying too hard. But moreover, they simply accompany the incredibly smooth approach of a band making their debut.

Maybe this is why I like them so much. Because of how kick back they always seemed. Maybe its because I find it easy to listen to Mark, his brother David and the expanded list of muso’s who’ve made up Dire Straits over the years. But really, it boils down to one thing. Mark Knopfler’s musicaility.

Indisputably brilliant guitar player. Underestimated story teller. All with the aura of someone who makes it looks like child’s play.

If you’ve never seen him play, just watch the video below, its difficult to see where he starts and the guitar finishes.

M/

~ Article updated August 2020