Friday 17 February 2017

Brothers In Arms (updated)

My father-in-law Charles was a good geezer and, on many things, on the button. It used to surprise colleagues at work when I told them jokes he had messaged me well into his 90s. He also loved music. It took a while for me to get some of his tastes from long before I was born, but Fats Waller was one. Though he turned his nose up at what he called "groups" rather than bands, he could recall seeing the Beatles play at the Cavern Club in his lunch breaks. It only occurred to me recently that he would have been over 40 at the time. To be fair, he didn't recall much, but no doubt they were one of many similar bands at the time. And he did buy all the early Beatles albums, though officially they were Christmas presents for his daughter.

So I wasn't shocked when, on holiday in the south of England en famille with our then young sons, he really got into the Dire Straits album I had on the cassette player in the car which, of course, was "Brothers In Arms". Subsequently he bought half a dozen Dire Straits albums and three Mark Knopfler solo albums. He long since struggled to play his vinyl, so we had bought him a machine to play digital music and I recorded many hours of his vinyl collection onto flash drives which he could handle more easily.

So, with a heavy heart over the last few weeks, I've been listening to those sticks in the car, particularly Fats Waller and Dire Straits. It's reminded me just how good an album "Brothers In Arms" is. Side 1 has the hits: the rather nursery rhyme like So Far Away, the classic Money For Nothing on which Sting's thin falsetto complements Knopfler's gruff delivery and Walk Of Life. But it's the atmospheric side 2 that I've always preferred.

Three of the four tracks on side 2 have a military theme. I thought many of the lyrics were just sentimental mush which Knopfler doesn't really sound as if he believes for a moment, indeed he almost sounds embarrassed singing (using the word loosely) some of them. But maybe that's just his delivery as the lyrics aren't bad and there is some story. In Ride Across The River, singing as a guerilla on one side of the river: "The cause it is noble and the cause it is just/We are ready to pay with our lives if we must" and singing as a mercenary on the other side: "I'm a soldier of fortune, I'm a dog of war/And we don't give a damn who the killing is for/It's the same old story with a different name/Death or glory, it's the killing game", with both singing that they're "Gonna ride across the river deep and wide/Ride across the river to the other side". I love this simple but well put together track with its percussion redolent of jungle drums and what sounds like a synthesiser mimicking pan pipes, giving it a South American feel. Indeed, after typing that I've just read on an anorak website that "The song is based on the concept of the Latin American guerrilla wars in Honduras & Nicaragua in the mid 1980s, as it features an off-beat rhythm, pan flute and eerie background noises, to allude to the elements of guerrilla warfare"* Nice guitar too.

The Man's Too Strong is about a war criminal, filled with guilt, hatred and fear, justifying himself as only having been a bit part player, but with more than a suggestion that there was more to it than that**.

The Brothers In Arms title track is another atmospheric piece with some lovely guitar. Charles was adamant that Knopfler was the best ever electric guitarist. "I'm not sure about that" I would say "but he's very good". This track has him in fine form: to me, every single sound that comes from the instrument, even the sound of his fingers sliding along the strings, is perfectly judged.
These mist-covered mountains/ Are a home now for me
But my home is the lowlands/ And always will be
Some day you'll return to/ Your valleys and your farms
And you'll no longer burn/ To be brothers in arms

My father-in-law served his country for more than half of WWII, most of it outside the relative safety of the British Isles. Although he wasn't in front line combat, there was plenty of excitement, including the landings to liberate Italy. I'm glad he made it through the war, though many of his brothers in arms did not. After all, I wouldn't otherwise have met my wife. But he was great company and it was always interesting to hear him talk about his days in uniform. And, as a man of discernment, he was, of course, an Evertonian. But it was a real bonus to not only share a love of music, but ultimately a love of some of the same kinds of music, despite our difference in age.

You swung like a sultan, Charles and not just in 1942, on shore leave in Casablanca.

Update - just found the picture and Casablanca was actually 1944:
1479112 AC2 Electrician Walker is 2nd left


*http://miamivice.wikia.com/wiki/Ride_Across_The_River
**https://www.quora.com/Is-there-a-source-explaining-the-lyrics-for-The-Mans-Too-Strong-by-Dire-Straits



1 comment:

  1. Lovely memories of a lovely man Phil. I too was a little taken aback when Charles in his late 80's asked me if I had any Dire Straits music when sat in my car one day.

    Both of us will long remember a really good chum.

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