The right become the wrong and the left become the right
May 12, 2020 7:21 PM Subscribe
1985 was a ridiculously strong year for music releases. We recently discussed The Hooters' Nervous Night (May 6), so let's look at May 13,1985, when Dire Straits' album Brothers In Arms came out. This peculiar tone poem of an album became an international success around the world, with several hit singles. Side A: So Far Away [video], Money For Nothing (original album track with problematic verse) [video (same problematic verse), radio edit without problematic verse] , Walk Of Life [video, original UK video], Your Latest Trick, Why Worry
Side B: Ride Across The River, The Man's Too Strong, One World, Brothers In Arms [video]
Bonus b-sides:
Going Home: Theme Of The Local Hero (Live) (video)
Why Worry Instrumental
Irish Boy (by Mark Knopfler)
The Long Road (by Mark Knopfler)
Side B: Ride Across The River, The Man's Too Strong, One World, Brothers In Arms [video]
Bonus b-sides:
Going Home: Theme Of The Local Hero (Live) (video)
Why Worry Instrumental
Irish Boy (by Mark Knopfler)
The Long Road (by Mark Knopfler)
problematic
I don't suppose you are talking about the chicks/chips debate
posted by thelonius at 7:38 PM on May 12, 2020 [4 favorites]
I don't suppose you are talking about the chicks/chips debate
posted by thelonius at 7:38 PM on May 12, 2020 [4 favorites]
I recall the being the first CD that everyone bought.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 7:53 PM on May 12, 2020 [4 favorites]
posted by ricochet biscuit at 7:53 PM on May 12, 2020 [4 favorites]
People who bought the vinyl got truly truncated versions of nearly every song on side 1, so listening to the full CD tracks might be a bit dislocating for them.
posted by hippybear at 7:58 PM on May 12, 2020
posted by hippybear at 7:58 PM on May 12, 2020
My dad played this cassette in the car quite a bit.
“Money For Nothing” also got the Weird Al parody.
posted by SisterHavana at 8:07 PM on May 12, 2020 [4 favorites]
“Money For Nothing” also got the Weird Al parody.
posted by SisterHavana at 8:07 PM on May 12, 2020 [4 favorites]
My friend Les and I went to see them in San Antonio on the MFN tour. I don't remember how one bought tickets for a concert in another city in 1985, but I ordered the best available tickets which were in the balcony. We drove the 4+ hours to San Antonio and it turned out that our seats were front row, center. I guess some couple expecting to be there found themselves in the balcony instead.
posted by neuron at 8:13 PM on May 12, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by neuron at 8:13 PM on May 12, 2020 [1 favorite]
I always thought it was ridiculous that they scrapped a perfectly good video for Walk of Life and replaced it with a bunch of dopey baseball highlight clips.
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 8:34 PM on May 12, 2020 [4 favorites]
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 8:34 PM on May 12, 2020 [4 favorites]
Speaking as a gay man, my issue with "Money for Nothing" (and this comment is soley focused on that song) is not the lyrics. It's the early build to something great -- boo-boo-bah-boo-boom -- oh YEAH here we GO! -- an amazing finger-picked guitar riff kicks in, and you think, "All right, here we go NOW," but then, it doesn't pay off in the end. It was going from something that was way too synthy-y and chorused-out to something harder...and that never really happened.
Anyway, I don't hate the album or the song. It's totally listenable. And not bad song writing. It's just a bit of a tease.
"You going to rock the fuck out?"
"We were planning on it, but decided to over-produce it."
"Cool. Your call. That sounded good."
"Thanks, man."
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 8:43 PM on May 12, 2020 [20 favorites]
Anyway, I don't hate the album or the song. It's totally listenable. And not bad song writing. It's just a bit of a tease.
"You going to rock the fuck out?"
"We were planning on it, but decided to over-produce it."
"Cool. Your call. That sounded good."
"Thanks, man."
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 8:43 PM on May 12, 2020 [20 favorites]
The Irish Boy and The Long Road were taken from Mark Knopfler's soundtrack for the film Cal, which had come out the year before.
Mark Knopfler's film scores probably deserve a listen in their own right sometime - you've got this, and Local Hero, Comfort and Joy, Princess Bride....
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:48 PM on May 12, 2020 [5 favorites]
Mark Knopfler's film scores probably deserve a listen in their own right sometime - you've got this, and Local Hero, Comfort and Joy, Princess Bride....
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:48 PM on May 12, 2020 [5 favorites]
I've never had any problem with the problematic verse, because I did at the time and do even now know it was a nearly verbatim comment by the dumbass Knopfler overheard in the home appliance store, and it entirely exemplifies attitudes toward MTV stars (most of them weren't homosexual but were perceived as such by older blue collar workers) and also general social attitudes at the time. It's both current from then and is historic now.
I'd prefer it not maybe be on radio, but in the context of the album, which seems to be largely about war and death, I don't find it anything other than a statement of where things stood at that moment in time. Other than the use of the pejorative, the lyric is actually fairly admiring of the object of the lyric.
posted by hippybear at 8:50 PM on May 12, 2020 [28 favorites]
I'd prefer it not maybe be on radio, but in the context of the album, which seems to be largely about war and death, I don't find it anything other than a statement of where things stood at that moment in time. Other than the use of the pejorative, the lyric is actually fairly admiring of the object of the lyric.
posted by hippybear at 8:50 PM on May 12, 2020 [28 favorites]
Other than the use of the pejorative, the lyric is actually fairly admiring of the object of the comment.
That's a really good way of framing it.
It's ultimately good songwriting, which is why that lyric doesn't bother me.
My issue is just that the song never really gets off in the way that was initially promised via the intro.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 8:56 PM on May 12, 2020 [6 favorites]
That's a really good way of framing it.
It's ultimately good songwriting, which is why that lyric doesn't bother me.
My issue is just that the song never really gets off in the way that was initially promised via the intro.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 8:56 PM on May 12, 2020 [6 favorites]
Nice guest vocals by Sting though.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:57 PM on May 12, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by Chrysostom at 8:57 PM on May 12, 2020 [2 favorites]
I wonder how Knopfler would respond to a challenge from the internet during social distancing to actually go give the full-on major sonic wall of joy that was promised by that intro. That that whole intro, and then... actually take it there!
Or in his mind, did he take it there? Or was that whole thing a sonic commentary/joke? Was it about the hollowness of MTV when the promise was so big?
Ive lived with this song for 35 years. I've thought about it a lot. Even the video, which is a thing which isn't a thing but which is a thing, and it grabbed attention even while being actually awful, and like.... I dunno. How much of that whole 8 minutes was Knopfler taking the piss while commenting on taking the piss and then getting to be a hit on the thing he was pissing on. I have no idea.
The sheer poetry of thinking about it for decades, though... has been fun.
posted by hippybear at 9:01 PM on May 12, 2020 [5 favorites]
Or in his mind, did he take it there? Or was that whole thing a sonic commentary/joke? Was it about the hollowness of MTV when the promise was so big?
Ive lived with this song for 35 years. I've thought about it a lot. Even the video, which is a thing which isn't a thing but which is a thing, and it grabbed attention even while being actually awful, and like.... I dunno. How much of that whole 8 minutes was Knopfler taking the piss while commenting on taking the piss and then getting to be a hit on the thing he was pissing on. I have no idea.
The sheer poetry of thinking about it for decades, though... has been fun.
posted by hippybear at 9:01 PM on May 12, 2020 [5 favorites]
I wonder how Knopfler would respond to a challenge from the internet during social distancing to actually go give the full-on major sonic wall of joy that was promised by that intro. That that whole intro, and then... actually take it there!
This would be a gift to humanity, no doubt.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 9:20 PM on May 12, 2020 [1 favorite]
This would be a gift to humanity, no doubt.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 9:20 PM on May 12, 2020 [1 favorite]
I sold so many cheap stereos with that CD. It was one of the first DDD disks and the intro to Money For Nothing made even the worst speakers sound like a million bucks.
posted by CynicalKnight at 9:34 PM on May 12, 2020 [8 favorites]
posted by CynicalKnight at 9:34 PM on May 12, 2020 [8 favorites]
The album was one of two played nearly every day in the group house where I lived in England (the other being “The Kick Inside,” by Kate Bush). From the Dire Straights album the song that amazed me the most, in terms of lyrical depth and resonance, and the musical expression of pain, guilt, and poignancy, is “The Man’s Too Strong.” So much solitude and defeat.
posted by datawrangler at 9:36 PM on May 12, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by datawrangler at 9:36 PM on May 12, 2020 [3 favorites]
he's up there, what's that? Hawaiian noises?
Bangin' on the bongoes like a chimpanzee
is not a particularly kind or admiring line, either. What color do you think "Hawaiian noises" is?
Look, the song is catchy as hell, one of the great iconic riffs of the MTV era, and I understand the conceit that it's just some blue-collar guy narrating, not Knopfler, but to what end? In the end, those lyrics are a serious misjudgment.
posted by praemunire at 9:38 PM on May 12, 2020 [3 favorites]
Bangin' on the bongoes like a chimpanzee
is not a particularly kind or admiring line, either. What color do you think "Hawaiian noises" is?
Look, the song is catchy as hell, one of the great iconic riffs of the MTV era, and I understand the conceit that it's just some blue-collar guy narrating, not Knopfler, but to what end? In the end, those lyrics are a serious misjudgment.
posted by praemunire at 9:38 PM on May 12, 2020 [3 favorites]
Maybe to the end that this song is even perhaps a bit of a documentary and it isn't a conceit but in fact Knopfler wrote the lyrics sitting at a kitchen display in the appliance shop where he overheard this conversation?
Like, I don't know why to dispute that across decades when it's been his story consistently, and he allowed the problematic verse to be taken out when radio began to object to it (which it didn't for a shockingly long time, truly)...
So to what end? Documentary of this person who was there. Randy Newman and Tom Waits and many others do the same thing a lot, really.
posted by hippybear at 9:51 PM on May 12, 2020 [9 favorites]
Like, I don't know why to dispute that across decades when it's been his story consistently, and he allowed the problematic verse to be taken out when radio began to object to it (which it didn't for a shockingly long time, truly)...
So to what end? Documentary of this person who was there. Randy Newman and Tom Waits and many others do the same thing a lot, really.
posted by hippybear at 9:51 PM on May 12, 2020 [9 favorites]
This album (and the concert that they broadcast around this time) were on steady rotation in my high school years. And a little while later, when Knopfler toured with Eric Clapton on his Crossroads tour (a career retrospective, a greatest hits tour) it was astonishing to see the crowd go WILD as the first encore opened with Money For Nothing; we had just seen hours of Clapton and somehow that riff just brought everyone out of their seats, and there we were singing about installing microwave ovens in unison. Really exciting moment but definitely odd, too. I guess we like anthems, whatever they may be.
posted by stevil at 10:01 PM on May 12, 2020
posted by stevil at 10:01 PM on May 12, 2020
it isn't a conceit but in fact Knopfler wrote the lyrics sitting at a kitchen display in the appliance shop where he overheard this conversation?
I don't actually care whether he did or not? I could write down all sorts of real-life racist, homophobic rants from my death-cult uncles, but I don't try to make them into the lyrics of good-time fun summer hits.
So to what end? Documentary of this person who was there. Randy Newman and Tom Waits and many others do the same thing a lot, really.
You've gotta be kidding me. To give your attention to a person. To write down what they purportedly said. To choose to give those lines to the narrator of a song. To set it all to an incredibly catchy and triumphalist tune, generally performed as a fun pop song with a quirky fun MTV-heavy-rotation video. These are all artistic choices that carry meaning. Knopfler is not some fully transparent unmanned camera pointed at human nature.
Our art is full of misjudgments like these that mar otherwise really enjoyable works of art. It's just the way it is. Can we not accept the fact that in the 1980s we were way cooler with casual displays of racism, sexism, and homophobia? I like Dire Straits. I like this song. There are some regrettable-ass lyrics in there. That's all.
posted by praemunire at 10:11 PM on May 12, 2020 [5 favorites]
I don't actually care whether he did or not? I could write down all sorts of real-life racist, homophobic rants from my death-cult uncles, but I don't try to make them into the lyrics of good-time fun summer hits.
So to what end? Documentary of this person who was there. Randy Newman and Tom Waits and many others do the same thing a lot, really.
You've gotta be kidding me. To give your attention to a person. To write down what they purportedly said. To choose to give those lines to the narrator of a song. To set it all to an incredibly catchy and triumphalist tune, generally performed as a fun pop song with a quirky fun MTV-heavy-rotation video. These are all artistic choices that carry meaning. Knopfler is not some fully transparent unmanned camera pointed at human nature.
Our art is full of misjudgments like these that mar otherwise really enjoyable works of art. It's just the way it is. Can we not accept the fact that in the 1980s we were way cooler with casual displays of racism, sexism, and homophobia? I like Dire Straits. I like this song. There are some regrettable-ass lyrics in there. That's all.
posted by praemunire at 10:11 PM on May 12, 2020 [5 favorites]
Yes there are. I have not argued against this.
posted by hippybear at 10:13 PM on May 12, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by hippybear at 10:13 PM on May 12, 2020 [2 favorites]
Pointing out the existence of documentary does not excuse problematic things about people within the documentary. Problematic. There it is.
posted by hippybear at 10:14 PM on May 12, 2020
posted by hippybear at 10:14 PM on May 12, 2020
There's a whole other rest-of-the-album sitting there which is context for that one song that might be examined, too.
posted by hippybear at 10:17 PM on May 12, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by hippybear at 10:17 PM on May 12, 2020 [1 favorite]
The lyrics and guitar in "The Man's Too Strong" are powerful stuff. A film could be made around that one song alone. I could leave the rest of the album behind and come back to that one song every few years and still feel a chill down my spine.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 10:33 PM on May 12, 2020 [6 favorites]
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 10:33 PM on May 12, 2020 [6 favorites]
Not one bad cut on this, the eponymous release, and Making Movies. Really great stuff. Rollergirl is really a time/place/life cut for me. I even had had a two record European vinyl live bootleg, long gone. It had a terrific version of Romeo & Juliet with a way extended solo. I love these '85 posts!
posted by j_curiouser at 10:40 PM on May 12, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by j_curiouser at 10:40 PM on May 12, 2020 [3 favorites]
My issue is just that the song never really gets off in the way that was initially promised via the intro.
Mark Knopfler is a really, really weird musician.
I love Mark Knopfler, he's a guitar idol of mine, but that bombastic thing... he just doesn't do that. Ever! The closest he comes is to lock into a guitar groove.
I truly think he's one of the greats, but the idea that he was ever a huge rock star that commanded arenas is so strange.
You've gotta be kidding me. To give your attention to a person. To write down what they purportedly said. To choose to give those lines to the narrator of a song. To set it all to an incredibly catchy and triumphalist tune, generally performed as a fun pop song with a quirky fun MTV-heavy-rotation video. These are all artistic choices that carry meaning. Knopfler is not some fully transparent unmanned camera pointed at human nature.
It's the same perspective as "In Bloom," but rendered with cool intellectual contempt instead of rage.
That doesn't refute anything you say here, by the way. In Bloom has a related problem with the same root: just because you have contempt for your audience doesn't make them not your audience.
I hadn't thought about that. But that's what the song was, you're right. It's hard for me to see it that way because... seriously, this was one of the biggest acts in the world? But there's Sting singing along with him...
posted by billjings at 10:44 PM on May 12, 2020 [3 favorites]
Mark Knopfler is a really, really weird musician.
I love Mark Knopfler, he's a guitar idol of mine, but that bombastic thing... he just doesn't do that. Ever! The closest he comes is to lock into a guitar groove.
I truly think he's one of the greats, but the idea that he was ever a huge rock star that commanded arenas is so strange.
You've gotta be kidding me. To give your attention to a person. To write down what they purportedly said. To choose to give those lines to the narrator of a song. To set it all to an incredibly catchy and triumphalist tune, generally performed as a fun pop song with a quirky fun MTV-heavy-rotation video. These are all artistic choices that carry meaning. Knopfler is not some fully transparent unmanned camera pointed at human nature.
It's the same perspective as "In Bloom," but rendered with cool intellectual contempt instead of rage.
That doesn't refute anything you say here, by the way. In Bloom has a related problem with the same root: just because you have contempt for your audience doesn't make them not your audience.
I hadn't thought about that. But that's what the song was, you're right. It's hard for me to see it that way because... seriously, this was one of the biggest acts in the world? But there's Sting singing along with him...
posted by billjings at 10:44 PM on May 12, 2020 [3 favorites]
Dire Straits is and always was music for yuppies and of course Knofler can't rock out because that would require emotion.
posted by MartinWisse at 11:12 PM on May 12, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by MartinWisse at 11:12 PM on May 12, 2020 [3 favorites]
I love how gentle and excited Mark Knopfler is in this video where he talks about his guitars.
(Awkward after MartinWisse above...)
Also, to 13-year-old me, Brothers In Arms the song was a near perfect match to any of the books about the old Druss the Legend by David Gemmell. Unashamed fanboy over here!
posted by fizban at 11:17 PM on May 12, 2020 [2 favorites]
(Awkward after MartinWisse above...)
Also, to 13-year-old me, Brothers In Arms the song was a near perfect match to any of the books about the old Druss the Legend by David Gemmell. Unashamed fanboy over here!
posted by fizban at 11:17 PM on May 12, 2020 [2 favorites]
I truly think he's one of the greats, but the idea that he was ever a huge rock star that commanded arenas is so strange.
I have mentioned before on the blue Joe Dator’s podcast Songs You’re Sick Of (now on a long hiatus) which examines songs that have been played so much that you don’t really even perceive them anymore save as background noise. One episode dealt with Dire Straits’ first moment of fame, “Sultans of Swing,” and Dator observes that the eponymous band is actually pretty terrible from what the song tells us — “Harry doesn’t mind if he doesn’t make the scene, / He’s got a daytime job, he’s doing all right,” so Harry doesn’t even really want to be here, but just decided he’d turn up for the gig, great. “He can play the honky-tonk like anything, / Savin’ it up for Friday night.” Look Harry, we’re glad you showed up tonight and everything but how’s about giving it your all this evening rather than holding off ‘til the weekend, when you may or may not be here, hmm?
posted by ricochet biscuit at 11:29 PM on May 12, 2020 [2 favorites]
I have mentioned before on the blue Joe Dator’s podcast Songs You’re Sick Of (now on a long hiatus) which examines songs that have been played so much that you don’t really even perceive them anymore save as background noise. One episode dealt with Dire Straits’ first moment of fame, “Sultans of Swing,” and Dator observes that the eponymous band is actually pretty terrible from what the song tells us — “Harry doesn’t mind if he doesn’t make the scene, / He’s got a daytime job, he’s doing all right,” so Harry doesn’t even really want to be here, but just decided he’d turn up for the gig, great. “He can play the honky-tonk like anything, / Savin’ it up for Friday night.” Look Harry, we’re glad you showed up tonight and everything but how’s about giving it your all this evening rather than holding off ‘til the weekend, when you may or may not be here, hmm?
posted by ricochet biscuit at 11:29 PM on May 12, 2020 [2 favorites]
Can we not accept the fact that in the 1980s we were way cooler with casual displays of racism, sexism, and homophobia?
Yep. It feels weird to be one of those gay guys from that time who has to point out language flowed more freely back then, but that's how it was and there it is.
In the 80s, you had normals like William F. Buckley get free space in the New York Times to suggest — in full sincerity and with the no-comment backing of all of the editorial staff of the New York Times who reprinted his words, unedited — that gay dudes should get tattoos on their ass to warn others about HIV, for instance. Seriously, this happened in the paper of record! And a sitting president actually let 90k Americans die from a disease, in which he could have intervened and tried to do something about! (Sound vaguely familiar?) Even as relatively, eye-rollingly mild as this one Dire Straits song turned out to be, the 80s were a pretty shit time to not be straight, all around.
I doubt Mark Knopfler will have the staying power of Mark Twain, and I'm not suggesting those two are on the same creative level, exactly, but hindsight makes it obvious to observe that artistic works from all generations can include hurt in all manner of ways, intentional and unintentional, and those injuries reflect the times in which they are inflicted.
Art is cultural memory. Painful memories are as valid and important to preserve as the pleasant ones.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 12:20 AM on May 13, 2020 [13 favorites]
Yep. It feels weird to be one of those gay guys from that time who has to point out language flowed more freely back then, but that's how it was and there it is.
In the 80s, you had normals like William F. Buckley get free space in the New York Times to suggest — in full sincerity and with the no-comment backing of all of the editorial staff of the New York Times who reprinted his words, unedited — that gay dudes should get tattoos on their ass to warn others about HIV, for instance. Seriously, this happened in the paper of record! And a sitting president actually let 90k Americans die from a disease, in which he could have intervened and tried to do something about! (Sound vaguely familiar?) Even as relatively, eye-rollingly mild as this one Dire Straits song turned out to be, the 80s were a pretty shit time to not be straight, all around.
I doubt Mark Knopfler will have the staying power of Mark Twain, and I'm not suggesting those two are on the same creative level, exactly, but hindsight makes it obvious to observe that artistic works from all generations can include hurt in all manner of ways, intentional and unintentional, and those injuries reflect the times in which they are inflicted.
Art is cultural memory. Painful memories are as valid and important to preserve as the pleasant ones.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 12:20 AM on May 13, 2020 [13 favorites]
I sold so many cheap stereos with that CD. It was one of the first DDD disks and the intro to Money For Nothing made even the worst speakers sound like a million bucks.
Someone told me a story about shopping for PA speakers. The sales guy cranked this intro, and, when the drums came in, it blew out the cones. Always be closing!
posted by thelonius at 1:44 AM on May 13, 2020 [4 favorites]
Someone told me a story about shopping for PA speakers. The sales guy cranked this intro, and, when the drums came in, it blew out the cones. Always be closing!
posted by thelonius at 1:44 AM on May 13, 2020 [4 favorites]
Money for Nothing was the hit, but man, the b-side of that album was so good...
I love how gentle and excited Mark Knopfler is
Haven't seen his work with Emmylou Harris mentioned, those albums are on heavy rotation around here... Mark Knopfler & Emmylou Harris - If This Is Goodbye (Real Live Roadrunning | Official Live Video)
posted by mikelieman at 4:39 AM on May 13, 2020 [6 favorites]
I love how gentle and excited Mark Knopfler is
Haven't seen his work with Emmylou Harris mentioned, those albums are on heavy rotation around here... Mark Knopfler & Emmylou Harris - If This Is Goodbye (Real Live Roadrunning | Official Live Video)
posted by mikelieman at 4:39 AM on May 13, 2020 [6 favorites]
As fan, I think Brothers in Arms is one of their lesser ones. A toe-dip into electronica that never quite pays out. Worth the chance, but I'm glad Knopfler decided that he wasn't going to really go too much farther with it. A bunch of bluesy folks were experimenting this way in the mid-eighties (e.g. Neil Yong) and IDK that there was a whole lot to show for it.
posted by bonehead at 6:58 AM on May 13, 2020
posted by bonehead at 6:58 AM on May 13, 2020
Getting away from the (interesting) complexities/problems about "Money For Nothing"'s lyrics for a moment: not my favorite song of theirs, but the music video blew my mind as a kid and future animator who hadn't seen much, if any, 3D computer animation at that point (the technique was still not very common, to be fair). It's one of those bits of animation that has stuck with me to this day, even after I left the industry, along with the "Nowhere Man" sequence from Yellow Submarine and the transformation scene towards the end of Akira.
posted by May Kasahara at 7:12 AM on May 13, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by May Kasahara at 7:12 AM on May 13, 2020 [1 favorite]
One episode dealt with Dire Straits’ first moment of fame, “Sultans of Swing,” and Dator observes that the eponymous band is actually pretty terrible from what the song tells us — “Harry doesn’t mind if he doesn’t make the scene, / He’s got a daytime job, he’s doing all right,” so Harry doesn’t even really want to be here, but just decided he’d turn up for the gig, great. “He can play the honky-tonk like anything, / Savin’ it up for Friday night.” Look Harry, we’re glad you showed up tonight and everything but how’s about giving it your all this evening rather than holding off ‘til the weekend, when you may or may not be here, hmm?
That is one interpretation. Maybe Harry doesn't mind it if he never gets big. Maybe Harry is like countless other musicians who just love playing live shows with likeminded people. You know, like (I'd assume) quite a few people you actually know? I find your take to be very odd, tbh. That lyric describes more people I know than a lot of bullshit that ends up in hit tunes. I don't personally know many famous people, I do know people who happen to be decent musicians and they knew they'd never "make it" with music alone, but so what?
posted by elkevelvet at 7:33 AM on May 13, 2020 [10 favorites]
That is one interpretation. Maybe Harry doesn't mind it if he never gets big. Maybe Harry is like countless other musicians who just love playing live shows with likeminded people. You know, like (I'd assume) quite a few people you actually know? I find your take to be very odd, tbh. That lyric describes more people I know than a lot of bullshit that ends up in hit tunes. I don't personally know many famous people, I do know people who happen to be decent musicians and they knew they'd never "make it" with music alone, but so what?
posted by elkevelvet at 7:33 AM on May 13, 2020 [10 favorites]
(on preview, "Money for Nothing" is definitely poking a stick in the eye of big dumb rock just like Smells Like Teen Spirit - yet both became big dumb rock anthems ... go figure - either way, totally unrepresentative of their overall sound.)
This came out when I was 16 and had finally saved up enough $3.25/hour money to buy a CD player. I couldn't afford speakers so I just had to plug headphones directly into the player. I bought Brothers in Arms at Record Bar in the CD longbox, probably for $16.99. Mark Knopfler was the guitarist who put the seed in my brain to take a semester off college a couple of years later to learn guitar from scratch at 19, then study abroad in England for a year and start a band there. I never saw Dire Straits live, but I was lucky enough to see the Notting Hillbillies side project at the University of East Anglia concert hall, which is a pretty small space. I was dead center with my hands resting on the stage for the whole show and afterwards I waited to get him to sign my CD insert. Mind you this was well after he was a huge star.
Brothers in Arms was the first album I heard by them (though I'd heard Sultans of Swing on the radio), so I went and bought their first album blind and was surprised to find it was ... some kinda country music? Great songs throughout, and yet another seed that made it easy for me to turn from indie rock bands to playing guitar in an early alt-country band. I hadn't listened much to "real" country music despite being from the US South, but I found it easy to solo over that stuff, and more importantly not to ever go jam-band-noodle. That's what puts Knopfler in the company of people like David Gilmour and a couple of others - their lead guitar parts make a statement, feel like vocal melodies, and rarely go on too long. You haven't really pushed yourself as a guitar player till you have a 3-chord country song with a 16 bar solo, half of which goes to a violin player and the other half of which is yours. What are you gonna say? Make it count!
I also truly love Communique (maybe my most-listened-to album) and Making Movies, although on the latter "Les Boys" and "Solid Rock" are lousy. Love Over Gold has the epic Telegraph Road, which you love or you hate (I love it) as their "Stairway" equivalent. Nothing after Brothers in Arms is really worth the trouble IMO.
I moved on to more "indie" music later - Steve Malkmus as a guitar hero was tough to buy at first but sooo worth the trip - but I will always have a soft spot for Dire Straits, who somehow conquered MTV despite not fitting the profile at all. One last thing - the fact the MK was around 27 when the first Dire Straits album came out was hugely reassuring to me, as having just picked up the guitar at 19 I thought I was way too old. Yet I managed to have a fun and fulfilling almost-career in indie music in my 20s. Although hearing local bands, I often thought "this band would be better with a creative guitar player instead of just 100% chordal punk whanging" ... so that's what I did :-) Thanks guys!
posted by freecellwizard at 7:46 AM on May 13, 2020 [5 favorites]
This came out when I was 16 and had finally saved up enough $3.25/hour money to buy a CD player. I couldn't afford speakers so I just had to plug headphones directly into the player. I bought Brothers in Arms at Record Bar in the CD longbox, probably for $16.99. Mark Knopfler was the guitarist who put the seed in my brain to take a semester off college a couple of years later to learn guitar from scratch at 19, then study abroad in England for a year and start a band there. I never saw Dire Straits live, but I was lucky enough to see the Notting Hillbillies side project at the University of East Anglia concert hall, which is a pretty small space. I was dead center with my hands resting on the stage for the whole show and afterwards I waited to get him to sign my CD insert. Mind you this was well after he was a huge star.
Brothers in Arms was the first album I heard by them (though I'd heard Sultans of Swing on the radio), so I went and bought their first album blind and was surprised to find it was ... some kinda country music? Great songs throughout, and yet another seed that made it easy for me to turn from indie rock bands to playing guitar in an early alt-country band. I hadn't listened much to "real" country music despite being from the US South, but I found it easy to solo over that stuff, and more importantly not to ever go jam-band-noodle. That's what puts Knopfler in the company of people like David Gilmour and a couple of others - their lead guitar parts make a statement, feel like vocal melodies, and rarely go on too long. You haven't really pushed yourself as a guitar player till you have a 3-chord country song with a 16 bar solo, half of which goes to a violin player and the other half of which is yours. What are you gonna say? Make it count!
I also truly love Communique (maybe my most-listened-to album) and Making Movies, although on the latter "Les Boys" and "Solid Rock" are lousy. Love Over Gold has the epic Telegraph Road, which you love or you hate (I love it) as their "Stairway" equivalent. Nothing after Brothers in Arms is really worth the trouble IMO.
I moved on to more "indie" music later - Steve Malkmus as a guitar hero was tough to buy at first but sooo worth the trip - but I will always have a soft spot for Dire Straits, who somehow conquered MTV despite not fitting the profile at all. One last thing - the fact the MK was around 27 when the first Dire Straits album came out was hugely reassuring to me, as having just picked up the guitar at 19 I thought I was way too old. Yet I managed to have a fun and fulfilling almost-career in indie music in my 20s. Although hearing local bands, I often thought "this band would be better with a creative guitar player instead of just 100% chordal punk whanging" ... so that's what I did :-) Thanks guys!
posted by freecellwizard at 7:46 AM on May 13, 2020 [5 favorites]
Harry doesn’t mind if he doesn’t make the scene, / He’s got a daytime job, he’s doing all right
Dire Straits often articulates the voice of a particular character, without voicing an explicit opinion about them. Money for Nothing is the same thing. Clearly the actual band isn't Harry. They have given up day jobs by the release of Sultans of Swing. Harry is a voice, a character in their narrative.
There are many, many "Harry"s out there, semi-pros who are happy with that life, who don't want the travel and the constant hustle of being a gigging musician. I'm married to one. There are many more ways to make music than being full-time.
posted by bonehead at 7:51 AM on May 13, 2020 [6 favorites]
Dire Straits often articulates the voice of a particular character, without voicing an explicit opinion about them. Money for Nothing is the same thing. Clearly the actual band isn't Harry. They have given up day jobs by the release of Sultans of Swing. Harry is a voice, a character in their narrative.
There are many, many "Harry"s out there, semi-pros who are happy with that life, who don't want the travel and the constant hustle of being a gigging musician. I'm married to one. There are many more ways to make music than being full-time.
posted by bonehead at 7:51 AM on May 13, 2020 [6 favorites]
Brothers in Arms:Dire Straits as So:Peter Gabriel or Hounds of Love:Kate Bush.
I listen to them all still, before and after.
posted by bonehead at 7:56 AM on May 13, 2020
I listen to them all still, before and after.
posted by bonehead at 7:56 AM on May 13, 2020
It's right there in the song - 'the Sultans play creole' which is not a genre of music that is going to get you signed to a major label, so unless they change their music, they aren't going to be big-time stars. Not terribly unlike being in a rock n roll band now.
Money for Nothing kinda blows, the dramatic intro that leads nowhere and the overly long and dull riffing and endlessly repeated squonky guitar part. And the lyrics making fun of MTV were already passe, as 1985 was when the original version of MTV ended, and later in the year they started creating the shows and playing less music.
Walk of Life and So Far Away are so much better.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:56 AM on May 13, 2020 [2 favorites]
Money for Nothing kinda blows, the dramatic intro that leads nowhere and the overly long and dull riffing and endlessly repeated squonky guitar part. And the lyrics making fun of MTV were already passe, as 1985 was when the original version of MTV ended, and later in the year they started creating the shows and playing less music.
Walk of Life and So Far Away are so much better.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:56 AM on May 13, 2020 [2 favorites]
It's right there in the song - 'the Sultans play creole' which is not a genre of music that is going to get you signed to a major label, so unless they change their music, they aren't going to be big-time stars.
….Unless "Creole" is the name of an original song of theirs?...(Just presenting an alternate theory.)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:08 AM on May 13, 2020
….Unless "Creole" is the name of an original song of theirs?...(Just presenting an alternate theory.)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:08 AM on May 13, 2020
→ Mark Knopfler's film scores probably deserve a listen … Comfort and Joy …
Seriously, Comfort and Joy: watch it. It's fucking brilliant. It catches Glasgow just at that awkward phase of upward mobility when the slums have been demolished but nothing grandiose has been built yet. Bill Paterson is a 1984 Radio Clyde DJ: cheesy, human, not quite sure of his talents. I spent three weeks in bed from an ill-advised injury just before this came out and my little pocket radio was jammed to Radio Clyde the whole time. I can still recite the What Every Woman Wants and Behar's store ads and jingles that are just like the naff ones in the movie.
As Bill ponders his place in the universe and why someone would vandalize his flash car with ice cream, the Glasgow winter evenings roll on. There's Mark's guitar — right there, as the sky turns from pink to ink over the Clyde and its ruined docks — wailing away with the heartache and possibility that Bill's character can't put into words. And that wail is thin and it cuts, like the cold that the warmth of the Lewis's christmas display can't quite shift when you know you've got to go home in the dark, your jacket's too thin and you'd never have enough money to buy the presents you see there anyway.
posted by scruss at 8:13 AM on May 13, 2020 [7 favorites]
Seriously, Comfort and Joy: watch it. It's fucking brilliant. It catches Glasgow just at that awkward phase of upward mobility when the slums have been demolished but nothing grandiose has been built yet. Bill Paterson is a 1984 Radio Clyde DJ: cheesy, human, not quite sure of his talents. I spent three weeks in bed from an ill-advised injury just before this came out and my little pocket radio was jammed to Radio Clyde the whole time. I can still recite the What Every Woman Wants and Behar's store ads and jingles that are just like the naff ones in the movie.
As Bill ponders his place in the universe and why someone would vandalize his flash car with ice cream, the Glasgow winter evenings roll on. There's Mark's guitar — right there, as the sky turns from pink to ink over the Clyde and its ruined docks — wailing away with the heartache and possibility that Bill's character can't put into words. And that wail is thin and it cuts, like the cold that the warmth of the Lewis's christmas display can't quite shift when you know you've got to go home in the dark, your jacket's too thin and you'd never have enough money to buy the presents you see there anyway.
posted by scruss at 8:13 AM on May 13, 2020 [7 favorites]
Oh, a fun anecdote speaking of "Sultans of Swing" - my father's buddies ran a night club/roadhouse during the 70s in the podunky town where I grew up, and they were pretty much charmed when it came to booking talent. It was a top club on the blues circuit for a while, and was also one of those clubs people played when they were trying to break into the biz an went on massive tours everywhere (The Police played there as their third gig on their big 1979 "we're introducing ourselves to America" tour).
Dire Staits was one such band; they reached out to the club to book a gig sometime in like January of 1978. They were able to get a date sometime in June of 1978. The owner added them to the roster, and were expecting the usual run-of-the-mill newbie band. But then "Sultans of Swing" was released one month before the gig and became a smash hit - and the owners of the club realized ".....and we already have them booked to play next month. ….Sweet."
They talked this up on the pre-gig advertising and the place very nearly overshot its capacity limit threefold.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:14 AM on May 13, 2020 [5 favorites]
Dire Staits was one such band; they reached out to the club to book a gig sometime in like January of 1978. They were able to get a date sometime in June of 1978. The owner added them to the roster, and were expecting the usual run-of-the-mill newbie band. But then "Sultans of Swing" was released one month before the gig and became a smash hit - and the owners of the club realized ".....and we already have them booked to play next month. ….Sweet."
They talked this up on the pre-gig advertising and the place very nearly overshot its capacity limit threefold.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:14 AM on May 13, 2020 [5 favorites]
Look Harry, we’re glad you showed up tonight and everything but how’s about giving it your all this evening rather than holding off ‘til the weekend, when you may or may not be here, hmm?
There's nowhere in the lyrics that say that this isn't Friday night (the contrast is to his boring daytime job where he's doing all right, saving up his artistic expression/real self for the band).
I have to respect Dire Straits because it's music I'm not generally into (self-indulgent noodling guitar dudes), but "Sultans" (and a few others) still gets me. There's a story there.
posted by praemunire at 8:17 AM on May 13, 2020 [2 favorites]
There's nowhere in the lyrics that say that this isn't Friday night (the contrast is to his boring daytime job where he's doing all right, saving up his artistic expression/real self for the band).
I have to respect Dire Straits because it's music I'm not generally into (self-indulgent noodling guitar dudes), but "Sultans" (and a few others) still gets me. There's a story there.
posted by praemunire at 8:17 AM on May 13, 2020 [2 favorites]
Pointing out the existence of documentary does not excuse problematic things about people within the documentary. Problematic. There it is.
"Documentary" doesn't mean "no point of view on the subject." Ultimately, there's very little about "Money for Nothing" that problematizes the narrator's voice. There is, I'll agree, a defensible reading that the song reflects a class snobbery, laughing at the unsophistication of the narrator's view of the profession, but it would also be kind of nasty to associate being blue-collar with being racist/sexist/homophobic.
posted by praemunire at 8:23 AM on May 13, 2020 [1 favorite]
"Documentary" doesn't mean "no point of view on the subject." Ultimately, there's very little about "Money for Nothing" that problematizes the narrator's voice. There is, I'll agree, a defensible reading that the song reflects a class snobbery, laughing at the unsophistication of the narrator's view of the profession, but it would also be kind of nasty to associate being blue-collar with being racist/sexist/homophobic.
posted by praemunire at 8:23 AM on May 13, 2020 [1 favorite]
I find your take to be very odd, tbh.
Protip: I am not Joe Dator.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 8:39 AM on May 13, 2020
Protip: I am not Joe Dator.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 8:39 AM on May 13, 2020
?? how very civil of you to offer the kind correction
posted by elkevelvet at 8:53 AM on May 13, 2020
posted by elkevelvet at 8:53 AM on May 13, 2020
I wanted to dive bomb in here and affirm what someone said earlier about his work with Emmylou Harris: it's wonderful.
Mark Knopfler uses his voice to good effect, but it is not a flexible tool, to say the least. Emmylou's voice sets off against it so perfectly that one wishes they'd just make record after record with each other.
(Ofc, it's a good thing we don't get that wish: she's got so many OTHER great artists to collaborate with, too)
posted by billjings at 9:11 AM on May 13, 2020
Mark Knopfler uses his voice to good effect, but it is not a flexible tool, to say the least. Emmylou's voice sets off against it so perfectly that one wishes they'd just make record after record with each other.
(Ofc, it's a good thing we don't get that wish: she's got so many OTHER great artists to collaborate with, too)
posted by billjings at 9:11 AM on May 13, 2020
"Why Worry" is an all-time great song; these years later it really holds up, ages gloriously as a song of encouragement, peaceful relaxation, meditation, a lullaby. It's amazing that something so sublime coexists on the same album as "Money for Nothing".
posted by riverlife at 9:20 AM on May 13, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by riverlife at 9:20 AM on May 13, 2020 [1 favorite]
"So Far Away" is used to perfection in a season 4 episode of "Halt and Catch Fire", like it was written just for that scene.
posted by namewithoutwords at 9:30 AM on May 13, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by namewithoutwords at 9:30 AM on May 13, 2020 [1 favorite]
I'm partial to the version of Why Worry with Harris.
posted by klanawa at 9:38 AM on May 13, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by klanawa at 9:38 AM on May 13, 2020 [1 favorite]
But then "Sultans of Swing" was released one month before the gig and became a smash hit - and the owners of the club realized ".....and we already have them booked to play next month. ….Sweet."This must happen to venues with some frequency, especially when acts really catch fire.
When I was in college (Bama), they booked a little folkie act for the back-to-school show in late August of '89, and as the summer rolled on they kept having to upgrade the venue because it was the Indigo Girls, and "Closer to Fine" absolutely BLEW UP over that summer. They ended up playing to a HUUUUGE crowd at an outdoor amphitheater, which was apparently pretty surreal to the band, because at one point one of them said "This is super wild, because 6 months ago we played to like 6 people at the Chukker," which was a funky downtown band-venue bar.
Anyway, I LOVED Brothers a lot. I had a cassette, initially, but it was one of the first CDs I bought when I finally got a player for high school graduation (class of '88!). As I began to wander into stereos-as-hobby, BiA was one of the ever-present "demo disks" in stereo stores (Paul Simon's Graceland was another). I think it holds up pretty well, though to be honest I always hated "Walk of LIfe" with a terrible passion.
In fact, by the early 90s when CD decks developed some "smarts," I had my Sony programmed to skip that track automatically. And later, when MP3 started to happen but portable storage was painful, it was one of tracks I deleted to save space.
posted by uberchet at 9:53 AM on May 13, 2020 [1 favorite]
I always hated "Walk of LIfe" with a terrible passion.
My. People.
posted by thelonius at 9:57 AM on May 13, 2020 [2 favorites]
My. People.
posted by thelonius at 9:57 AM on May 13, 2020 [2 favorites]
Oh god, I loved this album so very much.
Home from college one weekend, my dad casually asked if I would want to go "up to Dollywood" and see a "real guitar picker" for a change. Given that my dad had bought Stevie Ray Vaughn tickets a few years ago for me as a surprise, I jumped at the chance and asked who we were going to see. He told me Chet Atkins. Who I loved and admired so it was all good.
It turned out that Mark Knopfler and Chet had recently done an album together and it was a joint concert. There were a lot of Chet songs, and some Dire Straits songs, but the one that blew both my dad and I away was The Man's Too Strong. I'd always loved that song but with Chet it was just straight up amazing.
I went out and bought my dad a copy of Brothers In Arms the next day and he kept it in his shop to listen to when he was carving. He said it always made him smile a bit and that kid wasn't that bad on the guitar.
posted by teleri025 at 10:53 AM on May 13, 2020 [5 favorites]
Home from college one weekend, my dad casually asked if I would want to go "up to Dollywood" and see a "real guitar picker" for a change. Given that my dad had bought Stevie Ray Vaughn tickets a few years ago for me as a surprise, I jumped at the chance and asked who we were going to see. He told me Chet Atkins. Who I loved and admired so it was all good.
It turned out that Mark Knopfler and Chet had recently done an album together and it was a joint concert. There were a lot of Chet songs, and some Dire Straits songs, but the one that blew both my dad and I away was The Man's Too Strong. I'd always loved that song but with Chet it was just straight up amazing.
I went out and bought my dad a copy of Brothers In Arms the next day and he kept it in his shop to listen to when he was carving. He said it always made him smile a bit and that kid wasn't that bad on the guitar.
posted by teleri025 at 10:53 AM on May 13, 2020 [5 favorites]
To pigeonhole myself even more, I really liked Due South, and there was one episode that I remember as really effecting for me which used pretty much the whole of Brothers in Arms.
posted by fizban at 10:55 AM on May 13, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by fizban at 10:55 AM on May 13, 2020 [1 favorite]
Douglas Adams has the definitive take on Knopfler's playing:
“Mark Knopfler has an extraordinary ability to make a Schecter Custom Stratocaster hoot and sing like angels on a Saturday night, exhausted from being good all week and needing a stiff drink.”posted by logicpunk at 11:50 AM on May 13, 2020 [4 favorites]
I do love Brothers in Arms and of the set, I think Your Latest Trick resonated most for me.
Of his albums, I like Love Over Gold the best, from the long introduction of the Telegraph Road fading out into an urban ennui at the end (six lanes of traffic, 3 lanes moving slow) to It Never Rains ("Ah but it's a sad reminder/when your organ grinder has to come to you for the rent/and all you've got to give him/is the use of your side-show tent").
I spend just enough time of my youth playing Sultans of Swing that I still have most of it in muscle memory some 35 years later, which is quite a nice thing.
posted by plinth at 12:20 PM on May 13, 2020 [3 favorites]
Of his albums, I like Love Over Gold the best, from the long introduction of the Telegraph Road fading out into an urban ennui at the end (six lanes of traffic, 3 lanes moving slow) to It Never Rains ("Ah but it's a sad reminder/when your organ grinder has to come to you for the rent/and all you've got to give him/is the use of your side-show tent").
I spend just enough time of my youth playing Sultans of Swing that I still have most of it in muscle memory some 35 years later, which is quite a nice thing.
posted by plinth at 12:20 PM on May 13, 2020 [3 favorites]
This must happen to venues with some frequency, especially when acts really catch fire.
I posted a story before about seeing Counting Crows open for Cracker in a club show, on a tour that was booked before MTV made "Mr. Jones" a breakthrough hit, and a Mefite me-mailed me and recalled seeing the tour the very night before I did!
posted by thelonius at 1:22 PM on May 13, 2020
I posted a story before about seeing Counting Crows open for Cracker in a club show, on a tour that was booked before MTV made "Mr. Jones" a breakthrough hit, and a Mefite me-mailed me and recalled seeing the tour the very night before I did!
posted by thelonius at 1:22 PM on May 13, 2020
Another favorite (goodness me, goodness me): Industrial Disease
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 2:13 PM on May 13, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 2:13 PM on May 13, 2020 [2 favorites]
song of encouragement, peaceful relaxation, meditation, a lullaby
Many years ago, my first and oldest friend lay dying at his parent's house. I went to see him for the last time and stayed for a couple of days.
He was beyond being able to communicate but the folks said that he seemed to still enjoy music, and his father suggested something I could do to help would be to put together a few songs he might like on a mix tape so they could play it for him.
Music to die by. Can you imagine? Fuck, man. Where do you even begin with something like that? But I loved him, always will, so I tried my best.
I don't remember everything I put on that mix, and some of what I do remember, I regret. But I do know that Why Worry was on there, and on reflection I think I'm still pretty much okay with that choice. I hope he was too.
Thanks for the post hippybear.
posted by Two unicycles and some duct tape at 2:19 PM on May 13, 2020 [3 favorites]
Many years ago, my first and oldest friend lay dying at his parent's house. I went to see him for the last time and stayed for a couple of days.
He was beyond being able to communicate but the folks said that he seemed to still enjoy music, and his father suggested something I could do to help would be to put together a few songs he might like on a mix tape so they could play it for him.
Music to die by. Can you imagine? Fuck, man. Where do you even begin with something like that? But I loved him, always will, so I tried my best.
I don't remember everything I put on that mix, and some of what I do remember, I regret. But I do know that Why Worry was on there, and on reflection I think I'm still pretty much okay with that choice. I hope he was too.
Thanks for the post hippybear.
posted by Two unicycles and some duct tape at 2:19 PM on May 13, 2020 [3 favorites]
I could never understand why the execrable Money for Nothing was the big thing from that album when you had the amazing title track, The Man's Too Strong, and Ride Across the River.
posted by kitten kaboodle at 9:20 PM on May 13, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by kitten kaboodle at 9:20 PM on May 13, 2020 [1 favorite]
Romeo and Juliet is the Dire Straits song that satisfies me the most, but if you've never heard it, check out Mark Knopfler singing Prairie Wedding, which is so much more wistful and insecure than the Kenny Rogers cover.
posted by carmicha at 9:43 PM on May 13, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by carmicha at 9:43 PM on May 13, 2020 [1 favorite]
Amy Ray (Indigo Girls) does a Romeo And Juliet that tears my guts out both on the album and whenever I'm lucking enough to see it live (which has been more than a few times which might make me luckier than most really).
posted by hippybear at 9:50 PM on May 13, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by hippybear at 9:50 PM on May 13, 2020 [1 favorite]
If anyone has posted the Walk of Life Project (closing scenes of iconic movies set to Walk of Life) yet, I missed it. Pretty sure I discovered that site via MeFi.
posted by Larry David Syndrome at 8:22 AM on May 14, 2020
posted by Larry David Syndrome at 8:22 AM on May 14, 2020
Down to the Waterline is the one Dire Straights song I will never tire of. Too many of Brothers in Arms songs were overplayed before the year was out. The Man's Too Strong is excellent though, I agree.
posted by Windopaene at 7:28 PM on May 31, 2020
posted by Windopaene at 7:28 PM on May 31, 2020
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posted by sundrop at 7:33 PM on May 12, 2020 [5 favorites]