Great Moments on Video №15: Dire Straits - Down To The Waterline

(ITV What’s On, June 22, 1978)

Dire Straits - Down To The Waterline

(ITV What’s On, June 22, 1978)

All right, so this one’s a bit of a cheat. It’s not really a «great» moment on video, not by my definition, at least — more like a «good» one, of which Dire Straits have a reasonable amount. It simply happens to be a recently unearthed high-quality performance of my favorite song from one of my personal favorite albums of all time, whose relevance and importance for me has only increased since I first heard it decades and decades ago. It is also one more of those rare and precious pieces of footage that capture artists while they are at their youthful creative peak, yet still unspoiled by the toxic drug of fame-and-fortune — like that Heart video from 1976 that I discussed recently. Good thing the Seventies gave us quite a bit of that, as compared to the still very, very skimpy Sixties.

My general appreciation of Dire Straits has largely remained the same over the years: they started out as a phenomenal antithesis to the disco, punk, and New Wave developments of the late 1970s, recorded one masterpiece of an album, and then ended up burying their own invention when Mark Knopfler decided he’d rather be a star of the stadiums than a thinking man’s pub rocker. Although I like and respect much of what Knopfler did after 1978, there is absolutely nothing past the self-titled debut record I’d take with me to my desert island (well, I could take ‘Money For Nothing’, but that riff is ingrained in memory anyway, and there’s nothing else I really need from the song). I occasionally enjoy watching small bits of Alchemy, but at the same time despise its misguided mix of solitudinous and arena-rock atmospheres. I do not even like the early live performances all that much (although I’d still recommend them hands-and-feet over the flashy spectacle of Alchemy) — Knopfler began developing the «stadium vibe» very early on, and you can already see it in the still relatively small-scale show recorded for Germany’s Rockpalast in February 1979.

But the earlier you go, the more rewarding your finds are, provided you actually find something. Just as 1979 wins over 1984, so does the summer of 1978 win over the winter of 1979. This tiny little three-minute snippet of ‘Down To The Waterline’ from June 1978 — they must have been really squeezed for time on that TV program, since they don’t even get to do the long atmospheric intro to the song — seems to be one of the very first bits of live footage we have from the band (the only earlier bit I am aware of is the Old Grey Whistle Test performance of ‘Sultans Of Swing’ and ‘Lions’ from May), recorded less than two months after the LP’s release. At the time, ‘Sultans Of Swing’ was not yet a hit; the album had only begun climbing up the UK charts; and nobody knew about the band’s existence over in the US. Just the perfect time to go out on stage and show why it all mattered.

First things first: I have a very deep and special connection to ‘Down To The Waterline’, which is a more accurate statement than simply saying that I love the song. People who do not have this connection sometimes dismiss it as being an inferior repetition of the vibe of ‘Sultans Of Swing’, but this is really an auditory illusion, and I don’t even mean the fact that the songs are in different keys (B minor for ‘Waterline’, D minor for ‘Sultans’, I think). ‘Sultans Of Swing’ is very much a song about the present, with its faintly ironic celebration of the art of going on and on against all odds without even noticing that all the odds are against you. ‘Down To The Waterline’, in sharp and stark contrast, is all about the past — one of the sharpest and stingiest anthems to personal nostalgia ever put on tape. Naturally, most people tend to identify with the present; in this particular case, I prefer to identify with the past.

A lot of people crudely and insensitively bash the very idea of «nostalgia» as a sort of natural perversion that has to be fought, like alcoholism; and it is perfectly true that nostalgia can be harmful, toxic, and dangerous when chosen as a guiding principle to one’s life — it is, after all, very much due to nostalgia for a mythological past that so many of my countrymen remain perfectly unperturbed as their country bombs the hell out of their closest neighbors. But the nostalgia I am talking about, and the nostalgia that permeates ‘Down To The Waterline’, relates to that kind of nostalgia in about the same way as a sip of expensive, noble wine relates to a swig of nasty, gut-rot hooch. It is a personal, not social, kind of nostalgia, that brings back into focus those of the sweetest experiences of your past that can no longer be replicated, but can, even as you relive them in your mind, have a healing or rejuvenating effect in times of troubles, hardships and depression. Or, on the contrary, in times of relative stability and contentment, it can make you contemplate all the «missed opportunities» of your past, re-evaluate it on account of whether you have done right or wrong.

I mean, on the surface ‘Down To The Waterline’ is just a musical reminiscence about a doomed romance from long ago and far away — one of the many, many such reminiscences put down, one way or another, in all possible forms of artistic expression over the centuries. But most such stories, at least in the world of popular music, tend to be either sad-melancholic or sweet-melan­cholic pieces. ‘Down To The Waterline’ does not merely remember the sadness and/or the sweetness; it remembers the mystical nature of the experience. It is a past romance in which the environment matters just as much, if not more so, than the romance itself; an ode to both the unnamed muse whose "hands are cold", but whose "lips are warm", and the dark, forbidden, but curious mysteries contained in the cargoes, foghorns, and dog leap stairways of the River Tyne. It is not memories of the romance as such that produce the adrenaline shot; it is the memories of a romance waiting to be consummated in mystery, adventure, and a blind leap into the unknown that make the song so expressive — and the arrangement, with Knopfler’s jerky, hyperactive lead guitar phrasing all over the place, is perfectly coordinated with the lyrics.

No live performance of the song can hope to successfully compete with the studio version, since the atmospheric, echoey production makes up a large part of its transcendental charm. But this version, chopped up as it is, is the closest I’ve seen so far to try and at least partially replicate that charm on stage. Perhaps it is because the stage as such is almost non-existent: all four musicians are cramped in a tiny matchbox space, inside some really weird, oh-so-Seventies «orientalized» setting (I’m guessing they might have had some Indian musicians performing in another segment of the show and they didn’t have the budget or the time to change the paraphernalia fast enough) that is as far removed from the dark and dirty Newcastle quayside as possible — but not that far removed from the atmosphere of a cramped and stuffy little pub in which the «Sultans of Swing» are desperately trying to draw attention to themselves. It’s almost amusing how the three guitarists manage to avoid poking each other in the ribs with their guitar necks, particularly given Mark’s tendency to still jump and flail around quite a bit. But it does contribute to the idea of musical tightness between these three and the drummer — the original and unquestionably best lineup Dire Straits ever had.

The video is a great example, actually, of how important both Mark’s brother David on rhythm guitar and their friend Pick Withers on drums were in those early days. David, in his fairly stylish clothes (as compared to Mark and John’s unimpressive T-shirts) and with that handsome hair style, might look like just a «pretty boy» standing out there, but in fact it is his busy, slightly funky rhythm playing that is responsible for most of the song’s agitated flavor. (On the studio version, the agitation is further enhanced with an odd phasing effect on the guitar, but this live performance shows that David can be just as fussy-efficient without it). It’s quite clear at this point that, even if he does not write the songs, he is perfectly invested in them — too bad that, being the less talented of two brothers, the story of Mark and David Knopfler pretty much repeated the similarly sad story of John and Tom Fogerty from the previous decade...

Likewise, you can see Pick Withers, the band’s original drummer whose style was 100% in tune with Knopfler’s — they were the same kind of two peas in a musical pod as Pete Townshend and Keith Moon at the height of their powers — completely getting it on in a state of «concentrated relaxation», or should that be «relaxed concentration»?..; look at him chillin’, eyes half-closed, at around the 1:15 minute mark, as if he is letting himself be transported to Mark’s happy place while providing the song with its fast, pro-active rhythmic foundation. Somehow, despite the camera rarely focusing on him at all, he is more of an inspiration for me on here than John Illsley, who is diligently laying down the bass line but looks a little more absent-minded than the other three. Maybe this is why he managed to stay in the band for the longest time?..

As for Knopfler, his tenure here might feel a little giddier than the song demands, but it is still the giddiness of a little boy who has finally earned the right to appear in the spotlight, rather than that of the self-assured stadium rock hero who keeps investing ever and ever more into the refining of his crowd-teasing and crowd-pleasing techniques while the actual music gets ever and ever more boring. Besides, I can understand the smiling faces giving us a hint to not take this stuff too seriously (and note how he changes one of the song’s lines to "Granada TV, the Tony Wilson show" — Tony Wilson is the presenter sitting out there, looking like he’s bored out of his skull but secretly digging the cool music.)

Most importantly, Mark’s guitar playing here is already as good as it would ever get — he might occasionally flub a note or two while doing those insane finger-pickin’ runs, but, as it does with Jimmy Page and other less-than-100%-virtuoso guitarists, it only ends up emphasizing his, and the music’s, overall humanity. The tone he gets for the quiet instrumental break midway through the song is even more suave and soothing than on the studio version, tunnelling somewhere underneath the ground in George Harrison’s backyard, then just as smoothly transitioning back to the sharp, aggressive, self-flagellating leads that — in my mind at least — all symbolize those sharp pangs we feel when we think back on our past and torture ourselves for all the things we did wrong back at the time. And despite all the occasionally pulled silly faces, Mark’s visage always reverts back to deadly seriousness whenever he delivers one of the song’s key lines.

Compared to this version, the performance at Rockpalast — even if this one does not truncate the moody, suspenseful introduction — is already a tiny bit underwhelming. It is as if by early 1979, Mark was already getting a little tired of the song, as he tries to vary his phrasing, introduces some ad-libbing, and flubs a bit more than usual. Then it gets even worse on this performance in late 1980 — and not just because David is no longer in the band, but because Mark is already playing arena-rock god, more concerned about the Springsteenisms of Making Movies than about the meditative intimacy of the band’s first two albums. I do believe that after 1980, ‘Down In The Waterline’, along with every single song off the band’s debut album with the exception of ‘Sultans Of Swing’, would completely evaporate from Dire Straits’ or Mark’s solo setlists — never to return, almost as if he’d disowned his entire legacy from that early era; why, I still have no idea — it remains a completely baffling case of an artist choosing to ignore his best work for the rest of his life.

Fortunately, in this case at least we can always rectify the mistake and choose to once again go down to the waterline every time we feel the impulse to do a little rebooting and refreshing in our own lives. To me, performances like these are a great inspiration — not that it means all that much, but at least sometimes it helps shatter the routine of everyday life and clear a path through all the surrounding bullshit. No money in our jackets and our jeans are torn, your hands are cold but your lips are warm — still probably the best lyric ever penned by Mark Knopfler, and it’s nice to be able to experience the song as sung by the band when they truly did not have any money in their jackets. No sign of torn jeans, though.