Perfection, I agree. Funny enough a lot of times Mark's lyrics remind me of Springsteen (with The Kingdom touch of course, in this case as future Weller in "That's Entertainment" - punk poetry) but while I enjoy a lot of The Boss lyrics , his music doesn't click with me as much as Dire Straits'. They were *a band* here, not Mark Knopfler & Co. And what an album, understated, probably underrated too. I love most of their output, though (not unlike Police around half a dozen of solid ones); I couldn't do without the cinematic majesty of "Telegraph Road" to name one. In the end Mark took his own Sultans advice, as he explained in 2001 when he was questioned on his decision to not go back to big arenas with Dire Straits: "I have no interest in doing any of that big stuff anymore. I just don't see the point in it. I don't need the money, and I don't need the attention. Yachts and that kind of thing don't mean anything to me."
I don't mind Mark Knopfler having a yacht, actually, as long as he brings 'Down To The Waterline' back into the setlist. Resurrecting that debut album would have been a perfect way to move out of the big arenas!
Regarding Mark, he has an almost 30 years long solo career of which at least 15 I find ranging from marvelous to enjoyable. For those, maybe turned off by "arena tendencies" in Straits later career, be sure to check it out.
Thank you for bringing my attention to that video of one of my favourite Dire Straits songs! I, too, absolutely love their debut album, and this song in particular. It's a very strange stage to play it on, though. The rugs remind me of a Soviet apartment :) It's impossible to even imagine hearing this song any place outside a dim, mostly empty bar near the closing hour so vividly painted in "Sultans of Swing" (the same goes, for example, for most J.J. Cale songs, I must say), but somehow they managed it, only speeding it up a little.
Notwithstanding your lucid explanation of why this song is particularly special to you, most of us are rather non-plussed by its resemblance to The Sultans of Swing, to which it largely pales in comparison. Mark's tendency to plagiarise himself throughout his relatively short career (am I being unfair?) mark him out as one of the many shooting stars of rock who rode his luck with a comparatively small dose of brilliance. Don't get me wrong, at his peak on Sultan and a few other songs, he illuminated the rock galaxy like few others before or since, but marked (sorry about all these puns!) the ever-declining quality of music in the late 1970's-90's.
And i'm particularly saddened to learn that Mark's brother suffered much the same fate as John Fogerty's brother. Along with the Davies brothers (Kinks), the Everly Brothers, and the far more banal case of the Gallaguer brothers (Oasis), it really does lay bare the acute difficulty of siblings in surviving the transition to long-lasting success. Caine & Abel, are you aware of the long-term nefarious jinx you are responsible for? (But then, so human, how could it be otherwise?)
As far as I can tell both by ear and existing chord tabs, "Down To The Waterline" and "Sultans Of Swing" have completely different melodies; the resemblance is mostly because of similar tempos and arrangements, but, as I indeed tried to explain, the two moods the songs set are really quite different. "Sultans Of Swing" may have a more memorable resolving vocal hook - and, of course, the final guitar solo over which everybody always goes gaga. But it does not quite have the yearning-longing magic of "Waterline" for me.
You would have made a much stronger case for self-plagiarism, had you mentioned the resemblance between "In The Gallery" from the same debut album and "Once Upon A Time In The West" that opens their second album, Communique - THAT was a major disappointment for me, originally, to realize that the same style so consistently upheld over the course of one record would become exhausted by the time of the second one. As for the later albums, well, we all know that this was no longer the same Dire Straits, for better or worse.
As for siblings, well, at least the Bee Gees got along pretty good, I guess. Perhaps it works better for sisters - Ann and Nancy Wilson, for instance.
Perfection, I agree. Funny enough a lot of times Mark's lyrics remind me of Springsteen (with The Kingdom touch of course, in this case as future Weller in "That's Entertainment" - punk poetry) but while I enjoy a lot of The Boss lyrics , his music doesn't click with me as much as Dire Straits'. They were *a band* here, not Mark Knopfler & Co. And what an album, understated, probably underrated too. I love most of their output, though (not unlike Police around half a dozen of solid ones); I couldn't do without the cinematic majesty of "Telegraph Road" to name one. In the end Mark took his own Sultans advice, as he explained in 2001 when he was questioned on his decision to not go back to big arenas with Dire Straits: "I have no interest in doing any of that big stuff anymore. I just don't see the point in it. I don't need the money, and I don't need the attention. Yachts and that kind of thing don't mean anything to me."
I don't mind Mark Knopfler having a yacht, actually, as long as he brings 'Down To The Waterline' back into the setlist. Resurrecting that debut album would have been a perfect way to move out of the big arenas!
Great song. Nice to see them in the early days.
Regarding Mark, he has an almost 30 years long solo career of which at least 15 I find ranging from marvelous to enjoyable. For those, maybe turned off by "arena tendencies" in Straits later career, be sure to check it out.
Thank you for bringing my attention to that video of one of my favourite Dire Straits songs! I, too, absolutely love their debut album, and this song in particular. It's a very strange stage to play it on, though. The rugs remind me of a Soviet apartment :) It's impossible to even imagine hearing this song any place outside a dim, mostly empty bar near the closing hour so vividly painted in "Sultans of Swing" (the same goes, for example, for most J.J. Cale songs, I must say), but somehow they managed it, only speeding it up a little.
Notwithstanding your lucid explanation of why this song is particularly special to you, most of us are rather non-plussed by its resemblance to The Sultans of Swing, to which it largely pales in comparison. Mark's tendency to plagiarise himself throughout his relatively short career (am I being unfair?) mark him out as one of the many shooting stars of rock who rode his luck with a comparatively small dose of brilliance. Don't get me wrong, at his peak on Sultan and a few other songs, he illuminated the rock galaxy like few others before or since, but marked (sorry about all these puns!) the ever-declining quality of music in the late 1970's-90's.
And i'm particularly saddened to learn that Mark's brother suffered much the same fate as John Fogerty's brother. Along with the Davies brothers (Kinks), the Everly Brothers, and the far more banal case of the Gallaguer brothers (Oasis), it really does lay bare the acute difficulty of siblings in surviving the transition to long-lasting success. Caine & Abel, are you aware of the long-term nefarious jinx you are responsible for? (But then, so human, how could it be otherwise?)
As far as I can tell both by ear and existing chord tabs, "Down To The Waterline" and "Sultans Of Swing" have completely different melodies; the resemblance is mostly because of similar tempos and arrangements, but, as I indeed tried to explain, the two moods the songs set are really quite different. "Sultans Of Swing" may have a more memorable resolving vocal hook - and, of course, the final guitar solo over which everybody always goes gaga. But it does not quite have the yearning-longing magic of "Waterline" for me.
You would have made a much stronger case for self-plagiarism, had you mentioned the resemblance between "In The Gallery" from the same debut album and "Once Upon A Time In The West" that opens their second album, Communique - THAT was a major disappointment for me, originally, to realize that the same style so consistently upheld over the course of one record would become exhausted by the time of the second one. As for the later albums, well, we all know that this was no longer the same Dire Straits, for better or worse.
As for siblings, well, at least the Bee Gees got along pretty good, I guess. Perhaps it works better for sisters - Ann and Nancy Wilson, for instance.