When I think of the first years of music video, back in the days when MTV was still about music, one of the first names that comes to mind is Dire Straits. Their groundbreaking video for the 1985 song Money for Nothing was one of the first computer-generated music videos, and while it looks rough by today’s standards, at the time, it was pretty freakin’ cool.
Or, as we called it back then, “boss.”
Dire Straits was formed in London in 1977. Lead guitarist and vocalist Mark Knopfler and rhythm guitarist David Knopfler, along with bass guitarist John Illsley and Pick Withers on drums was the starting lineup. They were recording albums from 1977 to 1988, and then again from 1990 to 1995, although personally, I thought their first stint was definitive. They arrived on the music scene with a splash; their first single, Sultans Of Swing, landed in the top ten in USA and UK charts. Not bad for the new guys on the scene, but Sultans Of Swing is a pretty good song.
Trivia tidbit: Dire Straits’ 1985 album Brothers In Arms, which sold 30 million copies worldwide, was also the first-ever album to sell over a million copies on CD. Remember CDs? That’s what we used before Spotify.
Dire Straits had a sound I always liked and still do. They seem to draw influences from a range of sources, including American country, rock, folk rock, and even pub bands. They were never a big group, and most of their music used only the essentials: One lead singer, lead, rhythm, and bass guitars, and a drummer. It all worked. It still does.
Here are six of my favorites; you’ll note that they are all from the 1977-1988 stint I mentioned above.
Sultans Of Swing (1978): As mentioned, this was the band’s first big hit single. The song describes a group of young dudes (not the ones sung about by Mott the Hoople) who go out in the evening to catch a local band, the Sultans of Swing. Mark Knopfler reportedly got the idea from a lousy bar band he watched in a pub one evening; Mark later said:
When the guys said 'Thank you very much, We are the Sultans of Swing,' there was something really funny about it to me because Sultans, they absolutely weren't. You know, they were rather tired little blokes in pullovers.
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Private Investigations (1982): From the album Love Over Gold, about this song, Mark Knopfler listed as his inspiration the fictional private detective Philip Marlowe. Part of my fondness for this tune is that it’s a little different for Dire Straits; it has a long instrumental opening, and the lyrics aren’t sung, but spoken. It’s an interesting change of pace for the band, even if this isn’t one of their better-known pieces.
Industrial Disease (1982): While this song is focused on the decline of British manufacturing in the 1970s and 1980s, it contains an amusing reference to “Brewer’s Droop,” which is reportedly the, er, effect alcohol can have on a man’s libido. As Shakespeare said about strong drink:
Lechery, sir, it provokes, and unprovokes; it provokes the desire, but it takes away the performance.
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So Far Away (1985): This is a common theme in modern music, probably because of the on-the-road nature of the business. About this song, Mark Knopfler said:
Money For Nothing (1985): Now, that great video! This song paints a vivid picture of the excess that can come with being part of a hit band; Mark Knopfler wrote this one after listening to a bunch of New York delivery guys complaining about their jobs. Apparently, the lyrics were taken from actual comments.So Far Away is something I would want to apply to anybody. Quite apart from anything else, we are now a world of travellers and air travellers. Families are split up into different parts, all over the place, and it has relevance. It was about conducting a relationship over the telephone, which is a joke. It can't really be done over a long period of time, because you both get exhausted with it. That was the basic idea.
Side note: Police frontman Sting co-wrote this song; the opening line, “I want my MTV,” was sung by Sting.
Walk of Life (1985): Apparently there’s such a thing in London as a “street busker,” a street performer who plays for tips. Mark Knopfler claimed they were the inspiration for this song, including the repeated “Be-Bop-a-Lula” and “What’d I Say,” that he claimed were regular utterances among this crowd. Oddly, the American video for this song features professional sportsball bloopers, which is rather odd.Dire Straits dissolved for the final time in 1995. At that time, Mark Knopfler said:I put the thing to bed because I wanted to get back to some kind of reality. It's self-protection, a survival thing. That kind of scale is dehumanising.
It’s too bad that music, something that brings so much joy to so many people, is apparently so hard on some of the people who make it. But that does seem to be one of the hazards of the occupation.
I’m certain you all have some Dire Straits favorites. The comments are, as always, all yours.
