Mark Knopfler: A Life in Songs Page #3

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# You can fall for chains of gold

# You can fall for pretty strangers

# And the promises they hold

# You promised me everything

# You promised me thick and thin

# Now you just say

# Romeo, you know I used to have a scene with him

# Juliet, when we made love you used to cry

# You said I love you like the stars above

# Oh I'll love you till the day I die

# And there's a place for us

# You know the movie song

# When you gonna realise it was just that the time was wrong?

# Juliet. #

I don't think you do necessarily know which song is better than another. They're just different.

They're like people and you have to do the best thing by them

and you do the best thing by them

almost like a little person and then they grow up and you do

the best thing and they're the boss and then they walk away from you.

When they're recorded, off they go and they have their life.

This song's Tunnel Of Love.

For the song Tunnel of Love, also on the Making Movies album,

Knopfler was drawing inspiration from memories of his childhood growing up in the north-east.

The biggest fair in Europe comes to Newcastle every year and that was a magnet for me.

I was just always lost in the middle of it.

Also when I was little we used to go to Cullercoats and Whitley Bay.

On the train from South Gosforth station, there was an electric train that went there

and we used to go there and the Spanish City is something that I remember.

I'd been just on a roller coaster ride for the past few years.

# Crazy on the waltzers

# But it's the life that I choose... #

I realised that's what I was going to do.

I realised that was my life and that was the way it was all going to be, I was just,

I was in the middle of it, in the eye of the storm really

but I was just riding it just fine, I was doing it,

I was hanging in there and I was determined that I was going to go on.

# She took off a silver locket

# Said remember me by this

# Put a hand in my pocket

# I got a keepsake and a kiss

# And in the roar of dust and diesel

# I stood I watched her walk away

Could have caught up with her easy enough... #

My travels had taken me to New York at this point, but I knew where I was from,

it's a process that started a Cullercoats, it's a process that

started in Whitley Bay, it's a process that started in Newcastle,

maybe even earlier.

And that all of this stuff comes back to who you are as a little person, you know?

And it all still influences what I do.

# I'm searching through these carousels

# And the carnival arcades

# Searching everywhere, from steeplechase to palisades

# In any shooting gallery where the promises are made

# To walk away, walk away

# Walk away, walk away

# Cullercoats and Whitley Bay

# How to walk away. #

During 1982, Knopfler's musical journey took him into unchartered waters when he was commissioned

to write his first film score for director Bill Forsyth's Local Hero.

Is that the yank in that thing, Edward?

Aye, Peter, that's him away.

I meant to say cheerio.

Doing film work is something that I thought would be interesting

and just make a change from writing these ditties.

It's very lucky, I think, for me to have had those early years in Scotland, musically,

it's been a big factor, because it never seems too hard for me

to be able to create something in that Celtic area

that's melodic or that seems to work.

I just seem to be at home with that kind of music and I've always felt that I've had a connection to it.

MUSIC:
"Going Home"

In 1985, Dire Straits would release an album which would go on to become

one of biggest selling records of all time.

- Do you know which album sold most copies in 1985?

- Dire Straits?

# That ain't working That's the way you do it

# Money for nothing and your chicks for free

# Money for nothing... #

All right, so what was the biggest selling compact disc?

Dire Straits.

# You do the walk

# Yeah, you do the walk of life

# You do the walk of life. #

OK, Rover, so what's the album called?

Brothers in Arms, Dire Straits.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Thanks very much. It's very early on, I didn't even have time too make sure my trousers were zipped up.

It's just a little bit strange, it's 1987 now and that record was made in 1985,

but it's very nice recognition and...

Thanks for all your votes and... It's much appreciated. Thanks very much.

I'm sure one of the reasons why Brothers in Arms

was such a big record is that it coincided with the CD.

In fact So Far Away, I think, was the first CD single that was ever made.

I've no doubt that had a lot to do with it.

And also the fact that a couple of the songs on the record

did well in the States and that will always sell you records.

So that was a big factor, too.

# Here I am again in this mean old town

# And you're so far away from me

# And where are you when the sun goes down?

# You're so far away from me

# You're so far away from me

# So far I just can't see

# You're so far away from me

# You're so far away from me. #

I don't think when you're writing a song, or making a record,

that you're not really conscious that it's going to be a big record.

Making Brothers in Arms, I was just making another album, I wasn't really conscious about the size of it.

I think it's really not connected with your journey as a writer or a songwriter.

One of the stand-out songs from the album which still resonates to this day

and remains a staple in Knopfler's live shows is the title track itself, Brothers In Arms.

Brothers in Arms was just a phrase I heard and my dad happened to remark

how ironic it was that the Russians were siding with the Argentineans in the Falklands.

There you are you, he said, the Russians are being brothers in arms

with a fascist dictatorship and the phrase stuck in my head

and when you're a songwriter that's something you take notice of.

To a certain extent, you've got a kind of antenna for that kind of thing.

In fact, the first line of the song, these mist-covered mountains, the mist-covered mountains

is the title of an old Scottish air and so I said these mist-covered mountains are a home now for me.

But that's taken from an old song title and that's what a songwriter will do.

It's just these...

There's just this stuff.

There's this stuff...

in the scrap yard!

# These mist-covered mountains

# Home now for me

# But my home is the lowlands

# And always will be

# Some day you'll return to

# Your valleys and your farms

# And you'll no longer burn

# To be brothers in arms... #

What I was actually thinking about in terms of the song itself

was the idea of the mortally wounded man surrounded by his friends,

and that's just one of those battle scenes, isn't it?

There's a poem, The Burial Of Sir John Moore At Corunna,

and things that I'd read as a kid.

# And the sun's gone to hell

# Got the moon riding high

# Let me bid you farewell

# Every man has to die

# But it's written in the starlight

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