A Day in the Life We All Led Without Writing About

Album: Dire Straits, Dire Straits, 1978

Acquired: Having earned two degrees in history, I have been well-schooled in the art of spinning completely plausible tales from the flimsiest of documentary evidence. I mention this because my copy of the "Specially Priced Two Hit Albums on one Cassette" featuring Dire Straits bears a sticker that indicates I bought it at The Music Man in Military Circle Mall during June 1987. That obviously means I bought the tape with some of the first money I earned as a warehouse laborer at the Little Creek Navy Exchange. Which in turn, obviously means, my time spent toting huge plastic crates of women's clothing, discovering whole pallets of empty VCR boxes, and being made to feel bad about myself for being a someday college graduate yielded more than unfond memories.

Best Track: "Wild West End"

Lasting Memory: Long before I ever owned Dire Straits, I loved the biggest hit off the album, "Sultans of Swing." My clearest early memory of hearing the song is just after piling into the back of the Burtt's Country Classic station wagon after a long early October day spent at Busch Gardens in what must have been 1982. The Burtts, for any nonfamily member readers, were our next-door neighbors for nearly a decade when I was a kid. That trip to Busch Gardens was great, and I've always regretted not making more effort to keep in touch with my friend Chris after the Burtts moved to New Jersey in 1983.

A lot of the songs on Dire Straits sound like the regret of lapsed friendships, which explains much of the material's lasting appeal to me. Sad songs are the best. But in truth, none of the songs on Dire Straits are really sad. Nice trick, Mark Knopfler, reversing the standard "rocking song with sad lyrics" formula. Sneaky Scotsman, ye be.

Mostly, Dire Straits presents snapshots of a bohemian's life in London at the very moment he realizes he needs to become an adult. "Down to the Waterline" is about a date that just might be getting to the interesting part of the evening. "Sultans of Swing" tells about the guys in an all-dad's blues band but is really about the all kids who come in from the rain who don't give a damn 'bout any trumpet-playing band. "In the Gallery" does speak of the disappointment that awaits most artists, but a look at the lyrics shows the song is more cynically angry than disappointed or defeated. Here's the third verse of "In the Gallery":

And then you get an artist says he doesn't want to paint at all
He takes an empty canvas and sticks it on the wall
The birds of a feather all the phonies and all of the fakes
While the dealers they get together
And they decide who gets the breaks
And who's going to be in the gallery

Knopfler wrote the perfect anthem to the subject line of this post when he penned "Wild West End":

Stepping out to Angellucci's for my coffee beans
Checking out the movies and the magazines
Waitress she watches me crossing from the Barocco Bar
I get a pickup for my steel guitar

I saw you walking out Shaftesbury Avenue
Excuse me talking I wanna marry you
This is the seventh heaven street to me
Don't you seem so proud
You're just another angel in the crowd

And I'm
Walking in the wild west end
Walking in the wild west end
Walking with your wild best friend

And now my conductress on the number nineteen, She was a honey
Pink toenails and hands all, dirty with the money
Greasy easy Greasy hair, easy smile
Made me feel nineteen for a while

And I went down to, Cha, Cha, uh, uh, Chinatown
In the backroom it's a man's world
All the money go down
Duck inside the doorway, duck to eat
Just ain't no way,
You and me, we can beat

Walking in the wild west end
Walking in the wild west end
Walking with your wild best friend

Now eh, a gogo, dancing girl, yes I saw her
The deejay, he say, here's Mandy for ya
I feel alright, saying now, Do that stuff
She's dancing high I move on by
The close ups can get rough

When you're
Walking in the wild west end
Walking in the wild west end
Walking with 'cha wild best friend

And let me add: God, I love that verse about the conductress.

Back to the point, I heard once during a Casey Kassem American Top 40 that Knopfler changed his band's name to Dire Straits shortly before recording Dire Straits because he was making so little money on music that his personal dire straits were about to cause him to quit and return to his journalism job. If that is true, then it only makes sense that this collection of songs is focused on the appeal of youthful insouciance and the inevitable surrend to adulthood.

Up Next: Dire Straits, Makin' Movies, 1980 (the real sad stuff)

P.S. If you're curious what Knopfler is doing these days, know that he is making some of his best music. Which for him is saying quite a lot. Check out his latest, Kill to Get Crimson, especially the songs "Punish the Monkey" and "Madame Geneva's." The rules I set for this blog dictate that I can't purchase KtGC, but you should pick it up.