Classical Composer Reacts to Sultans of Swing (Dire Straits) | The Daily Doug (Episode 418)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 14 มิ.ย. 2022
- #direstraits #sultansofswing #direstraitsreaction
In this episode of #thedailydoug, I'm going back into the vault of our previously recorded material to share with you a reaction I did of Sultans of Swing by Dire Straits. This was originally part of my Fan Favorites video from April, 2022, where we were spinning our favorite songs with great guitar solos. I hope you enjoy!
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The alchemy live version of this is arguably the greatest concert version of any song, ever.
was looking for this comment! :)
I actually prefer the Live in London version, also long and almost the same but it sounds better to me.
Damn - just realised I still haven't listened to that . . . It's sitting untouched in my vinyl shelves . . .
It’s still the same song but better… bigger, fuller, more oomf… that whole live show is WAY up there. You can tell they had a great time playing that show.
I'd agree with you but there is one but. Comfortably Numb Pulse version exists
I am a heavy metal head, but I can put some Dire Straits hits in my car and listen them for days. Some of the best songs, music, performance and one of the best band of the 20th century for sure...
Then you would like Leo Moracchioli's metal cover of it (with Mary Spender)
Fellow metalhead, agreed.
Yup, they had me from the get-go. I'd put this tune a playlist with *Let There Be Rock* by AC/DC and *You Can't Kill Rock And Roll* by Ozzy. Throw in *American Pie* by Don McClean and *We Rock* by Dio and you have the start of a hard/soft music playlist...
S.W.
Am gonna agree with you, just shows metal fans have great taste
@@conallmclaughlin4545 Metal fans LOVE Classical music too! Give me some Wagner or Grieg and I'm just as happy as listening to Metallica or Megadeth!
As a guitarist, I hear so much in the guitar playing of Mark. His talent is immeasurable. In this song, if you listen, every guitar embellishment in between each verse line is completely different yet still retains the them of the song. absolutely brilliant.
I totally agree!!! Even though the musical style is totally different, I feel that Mark and David Gilmore are similar in that their guitar playing allows the song to breathe. Their solos flow like a river and increases the continuity of the song rather than breaking it up like other guitarists solos do.
Never has a guitarist had a better sense of "feel" than Mark Knopfler. He couldn't play a wrong note if he tried.
Clapton is the more technically skilled guitarist, but Knopfler is just so much more fun to listen to.
@@osterpenpen9379 I'm a huge Clapton fan (with ~50 of his records on actual physical media) and I'm not sure this is the case at all. I certainly don't feel it when listening to the two of them. I used to have a Facebook friend who had Mark Knopfler as her guitar teacher and, from that and maybe other things, I got the impression that Knopfler was classically trained - which Clapton definitely isn't. I'm not sure Clapton sets out to have fun that often, either, being a bit of a Blues player. ;) Incidentally, they've played together quite often, you know.
Btw, try Motherless Children on either 461 or playing Live in San Diego to see whether he's able to have fun. :)
I love the way Mark Knopfler is having a conversation with his guitar - he sings a few bars, his guitar answers him - a few more - an answer etc - it is much more interesting than doing both things at the same time... beautiful
That's very blues-like I'd say
just like the Beale St Blues Boy
Years ago, I heard MK relaying the story of the original Sultans in the pub and how the song came to be and I've always loved the fact that he then wrote it as a sweet and good natured tribute to these guys, who were just doing their thing. There isn't any teasing or ridicule in the song. The Sultans were legends in their own minds and MK then elevated them to true legends through this brilliant, imaginative tribute. It says a great deal about Knopfler's character, I would imagine.
…and says a lot about his experience as a journalist - observation skills and making wonderful stories out of these observations. Legend!
Doug, you should react to "Telegraph road" by this guys. Either version, live or studio.
Agreed. I know lots of people prefer the Alchemy Live version, but the original album version is an absolute masterpiece.
I second. Album version. One of the most beautifully orchestrated pieces of pop music I've ever heard.
I would add Tunnel of Love to the requests. Again-either version, live or studio.
i hope he listen to you. at me never read mesenjes
YES! Original studio performance please! Live ones are usually too fast. Do Tunnel of Love too please!
I still think this song is an homage to all small time bands playing crappy little joints. I've seen so many of them, and almost all were just empty dreams. I LOVE this song, one of my all time favorites, but it makes me cry for that reason.
Fiz Gig Agreed.I find some melancholy in this tune knowing its background. A rainy night in London, Mark ducks into a pub club to get dry, and hears this group who call themselves 'The Sultans of Swing'. Not many faces on tap in this joint, lame crowd, so Knopfler pays tribute to these young 'going nowhere' guys by writing a song about them, thus immortalizing them. You can't make this shit up.
Down To The Waterline is the first track of the first album and is still my favorite song of all time.
No money in our jackets
and our jeans are torn
Your hands are cold
But your lips are warm
They don't write em like that anymore. Hope you give it a listen, y'all! Peace!
Good choice! Love the fast echo!
yes ,reminder of teen romance with nowhere to go.
I remember at 17 buying the album, putting it on my second-hand Lenco and "Down to the waterline" came on... Never heard anything like it; that cool clean guitar. Next I bought "New boots and panties" by Ian Dury & The Blockheads and got blown away again, with their take on life.
You must listen to Telegraph Road next. Then Tunnel Of Love. Two brilliant tracks.
I concur!
Dan Vitale: You are so right !!!
God, Tunnel of Love is a perfect tune!
@@obeythemoo the ending guitar solo is one of the most emotionally charged guitar performances in history. Everything that Mark has just told you in lyrics he makes you feel in the music with his playing.
Telegraph Road is my pick for the best of Dire Straits
they seriously kept their guitar tones the cleanest way possible and still made the coolest songs of the 70s/80s
It's not the notes you play, but how you play each note, that makes the difference.
He's gifted.
You should check out an album he did with Chet Atkins in the 90's I believe. Pure magic.
KEY MOMENT IN THE LYRICS; when they refer to south of the river, you know this band is never going to make it. If they are playing in a pub in South London they have missed the big time. (I speak as a proud South Londoner.) The time bell refers to last orders, which would be called at 10.50 pm so you then have 20 minutes to get your last drink ordered and drunk.
Deptford, to be precise.
"Time" is different from "last orders". Last orders is ten minutes before the bar closes (ie, the pub stops serving). Time is when the bar closes, from which point you have 20 minutes drinking up time.
Your country is dead.
SUCH a good number! Glad to see you do this one, Doug.
Great solos, but gotta say, awesome drumming as well. KILLER back beats and one of my favorite fills towards the end, accompanying one of my favorite lyrics ever: "Come on in out of the rain and hear the jazz pour down".
SHIVERS... ;)
Love Pick Withers on drums.... And John Illsley on bass is rock solid. He was with the band all the way through.
One of my all time favourite bands, one of my all time favourite guitarists and probably my favourite song of all time. No wonder this was one of the few guitar solos I still remember note per note even years after learning it!
Mark Knopfler is a favorite of mine. His touch on the strings is eerily similar to Steve Hackett.
And unsurprisingly they both play with their fingers quite often
When I hear this song I like to think about a small group of musicians, somewhere in England, that hear this song and yell, "That's us! We were the Sultans of Swing!"
I was lucky enough to see Dire Straits numerous times in 1979 and 1980, right after Sultans of Swing was released, but before they became really big and playing large venues. Once was in a small nightclub in New Jersey. My friend and I were literally leaning on the stage right in front of Mark. I’ve been to a lot of concerts, but that was the best I’ve ever been to. Watching Mark’s finger-picking work up close is simply awe-inspiring. Almost every song performed live ended with a extended outro. Their studio work is beautiful, but Mark’s brilliance shines even more in concert. The best live solo I ever heard from him was the outro from Tunnel of Love where he incorporated a phrase from the song “Maria” from West Side Story. Took my breath away.
Their most critically acclaimed album was probably Making Movies, but my favorite is still the first one. “In The Gallery” and “Setting Me Up” have some of the best finger picking he’s done, imo.
I'll never forget hearing this on the radio for the first time in 1978. I was in nineth grade and it BLEW. ME. AWAY. Been one of my favorites ever since...
Very entertaining, educational, and your enjoyment of it is engaging! Listened to this song over and over again as it played on the radio driving around with a good friend on Friday nights.
this is my favorite song ever, it is just so unique, there are very few songs that are so complex and interesting as this one, and for some reason this tune especifically just cativates me, i cant even count the many times i have heard it and never get tired of it, still very new to music in general, but every time i find a song just so visibaly cared about like this one it just gets me..
As someone who spent a few years in radio, I just listened to your video, without watching the screen, and it occurs to me that what I heard would make a great radio show.
It is just a joy to watch you go through all of my favorite music and provide musical analysis
I'd been thinking for months about asking you to do Dire Straits "Telegraph Road" - definitely the album version. It's Mark Knopfler's masterpiece and one of the greatest epic rock songs ever written.
Actually the whole "Lover over Gold" album is art perfection
I love the Alchemy live version.
I love how there's a new guitar lick pretty much after every line he sings. One of my all time favorites, this one!
I feel like the drum groove is the unsung hero of this track. Absolutely superb.
Drumming doesn't get any 'tighter'.
Pi ck is a very underapreciated drummer .
Pick Withers was a rythm genius! So underrated..i think the smoothest DS have ever had
I never tire of hearing this song. Perfect in every way, every note.
No one sounds like Mark Knopfler. You hear one note and you know exactly what you're listening to. Also, he wrote the soundtrack for "The Princess Bride", which is my favorite movie.😊 But his playing in the song "Brothers in Arms" sends shivers down my spine every time, the amount of emotion he put there is unbelievable.
Knopfler just bends those notes so naturally. One of my favorites of theirs that no one reacts to is ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST, from the album Communique'.
Bass is so important to this song. So is the drumming, really. Neat, driving forward.
The drums are so good, the way he uses the percussion is just perfect.
@@asbjrnmaus7666 Pick Withers is a great drummer.
Withers was amazing, those 2 first Straits albums were excellent. I think they lost a bit of their originality when they started adding synths
That was fun, thanks Doug !
I always think about a pub on the old bridge in Hereford when I hear this. I wonder why :)
Hey! There ya go, Doug!!! Having a nice drink, while you listen to a great song! Love your channel!
Love your reaction and background information. Cheers.
Always loved this song for the great guitar work.... clean and sharp.
Dam, it gives me chills down the spine everytime!
Well Doug, this South African thanks you from the bottom of his heart for this, it's been decades since I heard this and, aah the memories.
I really dug this video Doug! My favorite song by this band is "Brothers in arm" I'd love to see you going through this tune. Thanks for bringing this content to us Doug
How about Dire Straits' "Tunnel Of Love"? Another great outro solo...
Thanks for that. The analysis was interesting. Great choice of number.
I think this is a universal piece of music, The world isn't big enough! Thanks Doug 🎸
Loved this song since my youth. So much fun to watch Dire Straits play this live.
Thanks for your reaction to this classic Dire Straits song, with your touch of musical references along with just pure enjoyment.
Thanks Doug, one my favourites, enjoy the rest of your day 😀
Really lifts my spirits every time
Dire Straits drummer Pick Withers was in a short-lived progressive band in the 70s called Spring. They made just the one, eponymous, album. They were based in my hometown and their keyboard player is a mate of mine.
Doug here's some interesting recommendations I started hearing some time ago:
-No quarter by Led Zeppelin.
-Equinoxe by Jean Michael Jarre
-La carrozza di Hans by Premiata Forneria Marconi.
-Viatge a Íaca by Lluis Llach.
-Abre la puerta by Triana.
-La poderosa muerte by Los Jaivas.
-ElDorado: album by ELO.
-Days of future passed: album by The Moody Blues.
-The snow goose: album by Camel.
I don’t like Zep as a psychedelic band. No Quarter is meh.
Just found you, your a tripper , love it your makimg the Melbourne winter very entertaining., Thanks Sean.
I love Dire Straits. The solos are just so melodic. Mark is such a unique player in the way he uses his fingers to play the solos. Everything is good about this tune.
It’s amazing the love Sultans Of Swing has accumulated over the years. When I first first heard it in 1979 I wasn’t so sure about it. But my brother Doug immediately bought the single and I fell in love with it. I thought the B-Side titled Southbound Again was incredible as well. I fell in love with their first three albums: Dire Straits; Communique; and Making Movies. Mark’s album from 2009 titled Get Lucky is also a big favorite. I think it holds up with his best work. In fact, I’d say as a songwriter maybe it’s his best.
Been playing this for 35+ years, it took on a new importance when my nephew and I jammed it at my mothers wake. Even my sister in law (who hates me) said she enjoyed us playing the song. I was doing the rhythm guitar.
Love Straits, first song I played live in front of a paying audience was So Far Away, but it was nearly Sultans.
Both are part of the inner circle of songs that I can just pick up a guitar and play, because I play them so often. Like Roxanne, Lick It Up, Rebel Rebel, China Girl, Turn It on Again and Message in a Bottle.
Sultans came out my senior year in HS/1st year in college. Love this tune!!!
It's cultural importance cannot be denied, in a time of straight Disco and before punk and New Wave, this song was a beacon for Rock. All alone, check the charts!!!!
That drum fill at 6.45... Absolutely magical...
The entire album is phenomenal. So enjoyable all the way through. Such finesse. Superb, stylish guitar picking. Yeah, I love this album :)
One of my top 5 all time favorites! Right on!
Talk about a great year! I was in college and this came out the same year as Elvis Costello's My Aim Is True. Talk about thinking you've died and gone to heaven!!!! To this day, both Sultans of Swing, and Alison still sound as great and are as powerful as they were when they were first released.
Doug!!! Thank you for critiquing this song, it was one of my Dad's favorite and in high school when it came out, he was asking me who they were, how many records do they have, "Just one, dad!" "Okay when do they come out w/another one??" It was so funny, but cool w/him liking this music. I was more into hard rock/metal, but these are great tunes. He loved playing Dire on his sailboat on a cassette player, back then. Keep up the great work, Doug!
I first heard SoS on the John Peel radio show, when it was first released a long time before it was a hit. I was blown away and bought a copy from my local, specialist record store. In 1978 I got to see them in concert, playinng support to Talking Heads. That was one hell of a gig
I have always loved the perfectly clean Strat sound of this track.
I can remember first hearing this --on a pub juke box! This seems good, I and my friends mused.
There was an Australian band called The Easybeats who had hits in the UK in the late 1960s. Two of the members were Harry Vanda and George Young. In later years they were incredibly influential in Australian music as songwriters and as producers for bands including AC/DC (featuring George's brothers Angus and Malcolm). Mark Knopfler paid tribute to them in this song by giving the Sultans musicians the names Harry and Guitar George.
I think the melodic composition of this song is so easily overlooked. The chords are pretty standard as far as I can tell, but the solos are just phrased so well.
I really appreciate that you list all the band mates at the beginning. It's nice to see the musicians being given credit.
I loved this song from the very first note. I got to meet Mark as well after winning a contest in Toronto from Q107 many years ago.
I have just completed listening to Dire Straits' complete discography, and had a blast. Telegraph Road is one of the most beautiful songs I have ever heard. Sultans of Swings is also very impressive!
Doug, please react to the song "Sapphire" by a Swiss gothic metal band Lacrimosa
Such a great tempo kept by David on Rhythm guitar. Mark plays with such a clean sound you can hear every note
Its amazing how you know the notes so well
People rave about the outro guitar but for me the main solo is a thing of melodic beauty. Every chord implied..fantastic player
one of my all time favorites
The musicality of the guitar is really amazing
The amount of music that came out of the 70's that'll last for centuries is mind-blowing.
love your stuff!
I bought the first five Dire Straits albums on vinyl as they were released and remember happy times sitting around the record player in the downstairs teen cave with my buddies listening to them for the first time. The Mark K and Pick Withers combo was always an understated highlight of their early work. For me, Single Handed Sailor is Mark's best song ever out of a fantastic body of work.
FINALLY! Dire Straits! :)
Its been years since last i listened to this song, so this will be good. Song is still as fresh and good as the day it came out.
Mark is such underrated guitarist in the "rock world". His fingerpicking (finger style)is so good.
One of the greatest guitar songs of all time ... absolutely brilliant
Don’t know what more to add then, you can ALWAYS tell when Mark is playing. Sharp bright, beautiful timing, hollow, brilliant
You're absolutely right about the story behind this song 👍🏻😉 cheers 🍻
Saw Dire straits twice here in Australia (in the 80's), love this song of course, at one point during the show he broke a finger nail, he tried to fix it by biting it, then he asked if anyone had nail clippers or a file. He got about 10 thrown up on the stage and I expect lots of the audience were guitarists. It was a great show.
Love the song and the dialogue & analysis
I honestly prefer the live version from what is in my humble opinion the best live album of the 1980s: Alchemy
Probably one of the best live versions of any song. The loud and soft dynamics are class
most if not all of dire straits is best when it's live. He should check live 1992 in basel .
I don't know if I prefer the Alchemy version, but that live is amazing! One of the best live version of a song I've ever hear!
Yup. The breakdown at the end of that version is unlike anything else. One of the best outros ever (sorry, Layla)
Live version is what i would prefer too. Wembley 1985 is my favourite to listen to.
Knopfler is a guitarists guitarist. So clean, such elegant lines. A true expert who makes it sound effortless. My favorite Knopfler story is one day after several hours of band practice, the rest of the band went to the pub, Knopfler stayed behind to practice some more. His mates came back hours later to find Mark passed out on the couch, guitar still in hand. He had literally played until he dropped. And that's a significant part of why he's a legendary guitarist. The more I learned about guitar, the more I loved MK.
One of those songs i can remember where i was when heard it first time.. I was just a little kid..
Please do the live versions, they are unbelievably good!
Should have done the live version Alchemy absolute brilliance.
When this came out in ‘78, damned the guitar solos were like a bolt of lightning…but what elevated this song from a really terrific single to the stratospheric level of rock songs, was when Allan Clark joined Dire Straits and they added all the dynamics between Knopfler’s guitar and Clark’s piano, and then, in Knopfler’s solo career, Jimmy Cox on piano. Alan Clark deserves a ton of credit for his work with Dire Straits.
This song is still a classic. It still amazes me that this became a hit.
Been listening to this song since I was 8 yrs old but my fondest time was riding in a taxi in Cusco, Peru with my wife and this song cranked by the taxi driver. One of the best classic rock songs ever...
The really magical guitar work in this one, to me, is all in the fills. The solos are great, but the fills do just about everything you can do with a riff on a guitar without using effects.
One of those records that, on first hearing blew my mind! Anyone else?
Was a DJ on my college radio station when this album came out. Had never heard of them before when the promo record arrived. Went out and bought it as soon as NRM had it. Have it to this day.
I really enjoy your reaction Doug - and I feel like I've learned a lot from you, I really like your knowledge and capability and easy pitch recognition too.... but super humbly, i do ask of you notice some elements of ornamentation and particularly drum flourishes, while concentrating on core structure and chord progressions... rhythm and feeling are the other side of the coin perhaps?
You haven't really heard this until you've seen him do the live performance. He tears it up!
Apparently Harry and George who are mentioned are Harry Vanda and George Young, the songwriting duo Vanda & Young. George was the older brother of the Young brothers from AC/DC
Now I didn't know that, tnx
Yeah, and Harry and George were in Aussie 1960's pop band The Easybeats. The Easybeats biggest hit was "Friday On My Mind".
I have also heard this, and not only were they in The Easybeats they had their own group, Flash and the Pan, they had some great songs like Down amongst the dead men and St Peter
Did not know, either!!
@Stephen Thomas. Flash and The Pan also had a minor hit with "Waiting For A Train". Stay safe and well,
this song is a solo from start to end incredible song
Just adding that there is some stuff deeper in Dire Straits' catalog that is profoundly unique and brilliant.
A Masterpiece of peaceful grooving🍷
I never get tired of Dire and Men at work.. timeless perfection
One of the first albums I remember picking out of my parent's collection was Brothers in Arms. I picked it because of the cover but stayed because of the music.
The live version on "Alchemy" and the version recorded by the BBC for Wembly Does The Walk (live at Wembley Arena) are possibly two of the all-time ever favorite recordings I know. The other song - also found on both of those live performances - that has utterly astounding solos by Mark is "Tunnel of Love." The original studio recording of "Tunnel" was under 6 minutes, but Mark takes it out to 15-17 minutes when performing it live. There's a famous quote about the Wembley performance of Tunnel of Love by Douglas Adams, author of "The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy." I can't put it here for copyright strike reasons, but it's worth looking up what Adams had to say about Mark, his Schecter strat, and Tunnel of Love. There are so many really good live Dire Straits songs that its hard to pick favorites, but that one, and the live versions of Sultans are kind of no-brainers. As often as I've listened to them, they never get old.
Absolutely classic song!