2024-04-12 11:00:05
Culture Mark Knopfler
His hope for the afterlife is the eternal song
Status: 12.04.2024 | Reading time: 4 minutes
Peace lies in the flow: Mark Knopfler
What: Murdo MacLeod
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Mark Knopfler doesn’t actually have any early works, because he wasn’t really young as a rock star anymore by the time of Dire Straits. His new album “One Deep River” tells of cruel crimes and bloody revenge, but also of saying goodbye and returning.
When Mark Knopfler auctioned off a collection of around 120 guitars and amplifiers at Christie’s in London at the end of January, more than ten million euros were raised. A Gibson Les Paul Standard, built in 1959, brought in 813,000 euros alone, and the new edition of the same instrument that Knopfler used, among other things, when recording “Money For Nothing” and when Dire Straits performed at the legendary Live Aid concert in 1985 played, was sold for almost 700,000 euros.
In the song “Tunnel 13” on his new album, Knopfler tells the (true) story of a train robbery 100 years ago. In 1923, three brothers in Oregon stopped a mail train and killed four employees because they were hoping for a gold shipment. A classic story of greed and murder, but the guitar collector Knopfler gives it a special touch: “Tunnel 13 is the place in the song/ Where the beautiful redwood for my guitar came from”. The old wooden beams from the disused railway tunnels were used for the famous redwood guitars. In the end, one can interpret it like this, there is treasure in the tunnel. Gold in the shape of a guitar.
Knopfler’s dreams of fame and status
Many of Knopfler’s songs tell of dreams of fame and success, of status and wealth, or, in a striking way, of the conscious renunciation of these, as with the modest guitarist in the smash hit “Sultans of Swing”, who is simply happy doing his everyday accompaniment job. But Knopfler himself preferred to be in the spotlight, and that’s why the most famous characteristic of Dire Straits among fans and detractors alike remains the endless guitar solo.
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Knopfler’s obsession with fame and career may also be due to his origins. His father was a Jewish emigrant from Hungary; his mother came from the northern English coal port of Blyth, where Knopfler, who was born in Glasgow in 1949, grew up. Many songs on the new album “One Deep River” (Universal) also revolve around the decisions that determine success. The fact that this is always associated with feelings of guilt is the drama of the upwardly mobile.
In “Watch Me Gone” the train is already waiting, she doesn’t want to come with him, but he has to go because a “big beat in a big life” is waiting for him, and he knows that even if he comes back again, he won’t be there anymore be the same. “And the songs were pushing/ Harder all the time,” sings Knopfler and also about the fact that his ambition and stardom must have once seemed very ridiculous.
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The great previous album “Down The Road Wherever” from 2018 went back to those early vagabond days when the musician had to hitchhike home with the guitar for Christmas. There is such nostalgia for the beginnings again, for example in “Ahead of the Game”. But also memories of the opposite, of the bitter realization that one has gone out of fashion, yes, that the entire world of showbiz functions according to new rules (“smart money”).
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Mark Knopfler’s new album
His preferred form has always been the folk ballad, whose role-playing prose made it possible to sing about conflicts under historical masks. “Sweeter Than The Rain” is a beautiful example that evokes the dense atmosphere of Dire Straits classics like “Brothers in Arms” – in the western setting of lonely bounty hunting and blood revenge that Knopfler loved.
In “Black Tie Jobs” he once again takes on the role of the local reporter (the one the journalism student started out as) who goes to funerals to coax anecdotes and photos from the bereaved. Here, too, there are years of apprenticeship that anyone who wants to become a noble feather has to undertake.
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To speak of a late work, or even an early work, makes little sense, especially with Knopfler, who, with Dire Straits in the late 70s, seemed to have fallen out of a time that was then making disco, punk or new wave – which of course led to his success as Blues rockers and the rise to football stadium attraction. Knopfler was no longer really young as a rock star back then, and so he didn’t have to change his style, which was trained on folk and Americana classics, at least after the end of Dire Straits in the early 90s.
The album closes with songs that have the character of legacies. “This One’s Not Going to End Well” will speak to many souls with its historical pessimism. The slightly gospel-like title song “One Deep River” ends the album on an otherworldly note. This is the comforting religion of the songwriter: the soul finds peace, the river flows on, but the song always returns.
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In order to display embedded content, your revocable consent to the transmission and processing of personal data is necessary, as the providers of the embedded content require this consent as third party providers [In diesem Zusammenhang können auch Nutzungsprofile (u.a. auf Basis von Cookie-IDs) gebildet und angereichert werden, auch außerhalb des EWR]. By setting the switch to “on”, you agree to this (revocable at any time). This also includes your consent to the transfer of certain personal data to third countries, including the USA, in accordance with Art. 49 (1) (a) GDPR. You can find more information about this. You can revoke your consent at any time using the switch and privacy at the bottom of the page.
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