Mark Knopfler, Southbound Again

I was a sophomore in high school when Dire Straits made it big with “Sultans of Swing”. It was popular, it was part of the background, it was OK, I was only mildly impressed. Later, one of my brothers gave me a copy of their third album, Making Movies, and I liked it; and as I started trying to grow my collection I eventually picked up the rest of their albums as well. I got to know all of their early tracks pretty well.

But although I’m familiar with it, I’d never given the track “Southbound Again” a whole lot of attention. If I listen to their first album there it is; sometimes it comes up on shuffle; it’s OK, it’s fine, let’s move on. And then, I tend to focus on lyrics and vocals when I listen to music, and treat the instrumental work as being all of one piece; and the vocals on “Southbound Again” aren’t anything particularly special.

But I was listening to Pandora in the car a couple of days ago, and “Southbound Again” popped up, and I found myself paying attention to the guitar and ignoring the vocals and—damn! That Mark Knopfler knows how to play guitar.

I mean, I knew that. But wow. Good stuff.

Here it is.