Song Musings

It’s Wednesday and I hope this week has been treating you kindly so far. As I usually do on this day, I’d like to take a closer look at a song I’ve only mentioned in passing or haven’t covered at all to date. This time my proposition is a true rock opus: Telegraph Road by Dire Straits.

Penned by the ex-British band’s frontman, lead vocalist and lead guitarist Mark Knopfler, Telegraph Road first appeared on Dire Straits’ fourth studio album Love Over Gold. The epic 14-minute-plus song is the opener of the album that came out in September 1982. A 5-minute edit was also released as a single in 1983, paired with Twisting By the Pool as the B-side.

Mark Knopfler was inspired to write the song while sitting in the front of the band’s tour bus and traveling along the actual Telegraph Road, a major north-south highway in southeastern Michigan. At the time, he was also reading The Growth Of the Soil by Norwegian author Knut Hamsun, a novel first published in 1917. Following a Norwegian man who rejects modernity and settles and lives in rural Norway, the work of fiction won the 1920 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Dire Straits’ first live performance of Telegraph Road occurred in March 1981 during a tour of Australia and, as such, predated the song’s release by 1.5 years. The track subsequently became a staple of the band’s live set. Knopfler also continued to play it during his solo tours. Here’s a great version from Dire Straits’ first live album Alchemy: Dire Straits Live, which came out in March 1984, captured during the band’s 1983 tour.

Songfacts notes the song about the beginning of the development along Telegraph Road and the changes over the ensuing decades was a metaphor for the development of America and one man’s shattered dreams in the wake of its decline, with a particular on unemployment. Telegraph Road was the band’s final recorded song that featured original drummer Pick Withers, who left Dire Straits after the Love Over Gold sessions and was replaced by Terry Williams. Another track on the album, Industrial Disease, addresses the decline of the British manufacturing industry in the early ’80s, suggesting the societal impact of industrialization was very much on Knopfler’s mind at the time.

The following excerpt from Wikipedia addresses the compositional aspects of Telegraph Road: The song starts out with a quiet crescendo in the key of G minor that lasts almost two minutes, before the song’s main theme starts. After the first verse, the main theme plays again, followed by the second verse. After a guitar solo, a short bridge slows the song down to a quiet keyboard portion similar to the intro, followed by a slow guitar solo. Next, the final two verses play with the main theme in between. The main theme is played one last time, followed by a slightly faster guitar solo lasting about five minutes and eventually fading out.

Here’s a neat live version of the song by Mark Knopfler, which was captured in July 2015 in Seville, Spain during his tour that year. Based on what I could see on Setlist.fm, it’s most recent during which Knopfler performed the magnificent track at select dates. Apparently, it wasn’t part of his regular setlist. This is so good. Admittedly, I’m a huge fan of Knopfler’s guitar playing, so I may be a bit biased here! 🙂

I’m leaving you with the lyrics of this great story-telling song. These words could have been written by Bruce Springsteen, which never occurred to me before – clearly a reminder I should pay closer attention to lyrics more often!

A long time ago came a man on a track
Walking thirty miles with a sack on his back
And he put down his load where he thought it was the best
Made a home in the wilderness

Built a cabin and a winter store
And he plowed up the ground by the cold lake shore
The other travelers came walking down the track
And they never went further, no, they never went back

Then came the churches, then came the schools
Then came the lawyers, then came the rules
Then came the trains and the trucks with their load
And the dirty old track was the Telegraph Road

Then came the mines, then came the ore
Then there was the hard times, then there was a war
Telegraph sang a song about the world outside
Telegraph Road got so deep and so wide
Like a rolling river

And my radio says tonight it’s gonna freeze
People driving home from the factories
Six lanes of traffic, three lanes moving slow

I used to like to go to work but they shut it down
I’ve got a right to go to work but there’s no work here to be found
Yes, and they say we’re gonna have to pay what’s owed
We’re gonna have to reap from some seed that’s been sowed

And the birds up on the wires and the telegraph poles
They can always fly away from this rain and this cold
You can hear them singing out their telegraph code
All the way down the Telegraph Road

I’d sooner forget, but I remember those nights
Yeah, life was just a bet on a race between the lights
You had your head on my shoulder, you had your hand in my hair
Now you act a little colder like you don’t seem to care

But just believe in me, baby, and I’ll take you away
From out of this darkness and into the day
From these rivers of headlights, these rivers of rain
From the anger that lives on the streets with these names
‘Cause I’ve run every red light on memory lane
I’ve seen desperation explode into flames
And I don’t wanna see it again

From all of these signs saying, “Sorry, but we’re closed”
All the way
Down the Telegraph Road

Sources: Wikipedia; Songfacts; Setlist.fm; YouTube