Dire Straits – Brothers in Arms – 1985

When Brothers in Arms came out I was in my early teens. I had just discovered that I wanted to pursue the hardrock direction in music although ZZ Top was my favorite band. I get somewhat confused with the chronology though. Anyway, therefore I wasn’t too keen on Brothers in Arms being a great album to begin with. I don’t think the hard-core Dire Straits fans hold it as their best album today though. Possibly not even back then. If I understand it correctly it was their big breakthrough album though and possibly also their last really good album. I’m no expert and I haven’t even listened to them all I think.

Distorted guitars

But as I said. Back then I was heavily influenced by distorted guitars and a hard rock sound. Money for Nothing gave me that. I didn’t think that Mark Knopfler was a very good singer at the time, and I still don’t but he seems to get his message out. It took me a while to get comfortable enough to even like Walk of Life with the heavy synthesizer keyboard riff. Just as it took me a while to accept Jump with Van Halen when that was a hit. Rock could only be made great with guitars. Some part of me still thinks that’s true.

That doesn’t mean that the music can’t be great though. Mark Knopfler might not be the greatest singer and doesn’t usually sound too happy but still manages to get his message across. I now understand what a good guitar player he is and what his different approach to picking the guitar with his fingers means. I also know that he’s actually left-handed but plays the guitar as a righthanded person would do. In interviews, he has claimed that this makes him play better and that certain riffs is easier for him as he has his stronger hand on the guitar neck. I couldn’t play with revered hands to save my life. Other notable lefties who play righthanded guitars are Gary Moore and BB King. I’m sure there are more but I don’t know about them. If you do, please leave a comment!

Lefthanded

There are plenty of lefthanded guitarists though. Jimi Hendrix and Paul McCartney are two examples. But never mind that. Back to Brothers in Arms. I love Money for Nothing and learned to love Walk of Life later, especially when I started to sing along and understood the lyrics. Nowadays neither of those songs are my favorites though. It has been the song The Man’s Too Strong for many years. I don’t know what’s making me like it so much, there’s no particular riff of something like that making it great. I think it’s mainly the song structure that appeals to me.

My friend, who introduced me to Dire Straits back in the day had this album on vinyl and it was often played when we got together. I didn’t own it myself until years later. Now I have the CD version of it and if I recall correctly there are longer versions of some of the songs on it. I think the standard of this album song-wise is pretty good. There are no other songs with the emphasis on the guitar riff as Money for Nothing maybe, but Brothers in Arms taught me not everything was about the guitar on a rock album.