Yes, this is the song that could bring me to tears (if I wasn't just such a tough bastard
) - old people, when they live their last years, often get the former children's rooms when they are at their own children's home, aren't they? So the first sentence ("a room on the top floor") puts us into the right direction. The last paragraph however is really touching - telling what he COULD have been able to do in his life, that he was young and lively and was able to '"stand up on horseback", was the man for the singing, put his hand up for boxing. He charmed all the women and danced round the taproom with a chair in his teeth.".. but the hard labour has made him what he is today, wrecked off, hurt, empty, worn out.
I knew some people in my life that had hard (working) lifes and two of them died and their deaths were happening pretty close to me. Nothing sentimental about that, only saying it to illustrate that I had an immediate connection to this song. An old man, looking back on a hard life and remembering what COULD have been... stuff like this can really break your heart, don't you think?
Mark Knopfler has pretty deep lyrics on Tracker, I can't see any song on Privateering (apart from Today Is Okay) which would have this MK touch. Most of them are pretty artificial instead of artistic. I was never getting warm with the Submariner or Kingdom of Gold for example. I went through all the songs of Privateering this afternoon: maybe Seattle and Yon Two Crows have the usual quality. This time, there are some songs on Tracker which immediately reached me not only musically but also lyrically. Mighty Man is one of them.
LE
