One of my all-time favourite artists Mark Knopfler has a new album out! I only found out today so I am 12 days late but it’s blaring through the speakers now. Better late than never.

     The first time I ran into Knopfler was when I was a teenager. The dad of my best friend had bought Sailing to Philadelphia and was playing it on repeat. We ‘borrowed’ the album a lot too so we could play it on our stereo when we went sailing ourselves. Not your typical teenage album but a testament to the influence our parents have on us and the quality of the album.

     I loved What It Is of course. The track that makes the album for me though is Speedway at Nazareth. It took a while to grow on me over the years and now I still listen to it pretty often. On full volume in the car for instance. It starts with an electronic bassline and just keeps getting bigger and bigger over 6 minutes. Every time you think it can’t get any bigger he one-ups it again. What an artist!

     Diving into his body of work it’s super impressive and humbling at the same time. We think of Dire Straits and the Notting Hillbillies as regular bands but really, all they were was a way for Knopfler to express himself. No one had much of anything to say and his natural talent would just overpower everyone. To the great dismay of his brother David Knopfler who is an amazing guitarist too but when your brother is Mark Knopfler, you’re shit out of luck.

     A while back he was here in Lisbon on tour. He sat down with a journalist to talk about the tour and his music. They sat on a terrace in the centre of town with dozens of people passing by without anyone noticing this huge rockstar was sitting there chatting about music in the sun. And that might be why I love him so much, he doesn’t give a shit about status. He just sits there and speaks of music from the heart without the normal grandiosity that comes with artists of his stature.

     He sits down with his music every evening to check in with them to see how they are doing. He plays one of his tracks just to see if it still feels right or if it has changed a bit since the last time. I love this! The music keeps evolving and I imagine him playing Sultans of Swing alone at home to see if that legendary riff is still the same or has grown even more spectacular without us ever knowing where that track has grown to over the years. However, we get hints when we listen to the Dire Straits concert at Hammersmith Odeon in 1983.

     So One Deep River will take a while to grow on me again but it gives me hope that he will start touring again so we can all once again see him play live. Thanks, Mark!