Friday Song: “Sultans of Swing”
Fluid and memorable, Dire Straits’ first single is an enduring masterpiece
Mark Knopfler, founder and lead singer of Dire Straits, and a guitar legend for bringing his signature finger-picking style to rock music — along with years of amazing work outside of rock — recently turned 75.
“Sultans of Swing” was released in 1978, and was the band’s first single. It reached #4 on the US charts, and #8 in the UK. A story song, it tells the tale of a group of guys who go to a club after work to catch a local band — the Sultans Of Swing. The band has pretty good chops, but its members are too old or lazy to go any further. At least one member has a day job. He’s doing alright.
The story is actually fairly close to what Knopfler used as inspiration. Stuck in Ipswich on a rainy night, he ducked into a bar where a mediocre band playing to a half-dozen drunks ended their set announcing, “Goodnight and thank you. We are the sultans of swing.”
According to Knopfler, “There was something really funny about it to me because Sultans, they absolutely weren’t. They were rather tired little blokes in pullovers.”
Unlike most other songs describing other bands — for example, “Bennie & the Jets” — Dire Straits made no effort to swing or to sound like a daft bar band. Their superb musicianship is a stark contrast to the band in the story.
The song was originally composed by Knopfler on a National Steel guitar in open tuning. He thought the song sounded “dull” until he bought his first Fender Stratocaster in 1977. Then, “it just came alive as soon as I played it on that ’61 Strat . . . the new chord changes just presented themselves and fell into place.”
Set in D minor, the song is fluid, engaging, and this live performance from 1983 contains some surprises as the players were clearly in their prime, loved playing the song, and were having fun themselves.
I mean, Knopfler and Olivia Newton-John were making sweatbands look cool, so it was a different time.
Enjoy!