Dire Straits - Making Movies
#419
by Paul Zickler
October 17 1980
Dire Straits
Making Movies
Genre: Rock
Allen’s Rating: 4.5 out of 5
Paul’s Rating: 5 out of 5
Highlights:
Tunnel of Love
Romeo and Juliet
Skateaway
Expresso Love
Solid Rock
How well do I know this album? If I were to close my eyes and sit in a silent room, I believe I could “hear” every song from memory, including all the lyrics and most of the solos. I’ve owned two copies each of the vinyl and the CD. I very clearly remember taking the shrink wrap off the LP for the first time and placing it on my cousin Troy’s turntable in Vancouver, BC. “Deery straights?” he asked. I think I just grimaced and told him to listen. Just listen.
Mark Knopfler had two records under his belt and had forged a reputation as a guitar hero among critics and fans alike. He could’ve gone on making Sultans of Swing and Portobello Belle, showcasing his fingerpicked Strat solos and adding the occasional acoustic ballad. Instead, he started writing epic filmscapes, hired Springsteen’s producer and piano player, and made a London-via-Newcastle version of “Born to Run.” He also allowed drummer Pick Withers to step out of the shadows a bit, or maybe Pick just decided he was tired of being every bit the virtuoso as his more famous bandmate and just let it rip. Either way, we are all better for it.
Every song is a movie here, and all of them are feature film worthy. Even the lyrically dated Skateaway (yes, people were really that passionate about rollerblading in the ‘80’s) gets inside the head of a character we’d love to follow around for more than just six minutes. And God, what a chorus: “The music makes her wanna be the story / And the story was whatever was the song, what it was / Roller girl, don’t worry / DJ play the movie all night long.” Take out the skates and you’re every kid who ever owned a Walkman, all of us moving through our own movie, the music lifting us above the mundane world.
Tunnel of Love opens with the waltz from “Carousel” (personal side note: my senior year in high school I played Mr. Snow in that musical, and every time the orchestra played the overture, I heard Knopfler’s guitar kick in), and the song conjures both the romance and the seedy dark side of a rainy carnival sideshow. Romeo and Juliet introduces Mark’s National steel guitar (of later cover photo fame), paints an indelible portrait of abandoned love, and manages to avoid the bathos of every single cover version that followed. The opening 40 seconds of Expresso Love -- Bittan’s piano dancing lithely over Knopfler’s guitar -- hook the listener so effectively, it barely matters that the song is lyrically less satisfying. The narrator’s inability to express(o) his love (“I feel so good cuz I feel so good”) makes zero difference because the music tells the story so damn well. Hand in Hand gives Bittan’s piano even more focus, appropriately for a narrator wandering through the English rain, refusing to let go of a love in vain. It may not be as epic as Tunnel of Love, but the pain is just as real. Solid Rock just rocks. Les Boys finds Knopfler rewriting “Cabaret,” just to see if he can pull it off (hint: he can).
The penchant for epic-length movie songs would get a bit more extreme on “Love Over Gold,” and the ability to crank out rocking earworms would reach its peak on “Brothers in Arms,” but for me at least, “Making Movies” was that sweet spot where Dire Straits’ talent, exuberance and ambition came together to create a masterpiece.
https://open.spotify.com/album/7yTjsInNdNQJAlXAboi1nh?si=-TEnkPaaQiCC2Yv1esO1HA
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