(5) Mighty Man (5:55)

[LoveExpresso]

Things that he COULD have done in another, happier version of his life if the hard labour for the Ro
roads of England had not destroyed his health and body. Telling it to his son from the bed in the room of the top floor where he is supposed to spend the last days of his life. See this wrecked man was once the man for the singing, dancing, charming ladies etc. Very touching. My take anyway.

LE

[Rail King]

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 astistic. 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

Disagree partially.
Haul Away is a very beautiful attempt to put into words the painful inner process of having to endure the death of a close and loved person and the process of finally overcoming it. The doldrums is such a beautiful, soothing and consoling picture for a soul that is in the state of painful paralyzation after the death of a loved one when everything in life comes to a standstill and before eventually the doldrums are overcome and the soul gets the wind again to continue the journey of life. Can it get any deeper than that? The poet is once more a compassionate consoler ("to help people through their days... and through their nights").
One could say similar things about Submariner.
Redbud Tree is existential as well.
Privateering has its very deep moments that are hard to sound the depth of.

I agree with LE about this being very emotional, and I also agree with surferboy that Privateering had such moments, too. All MK albums have them, don't they? They're the reason a always come back to MK. He never fails to make me cry, which is the highest sort of praise I have to offer for any kind of art.

[Nick14]

The problem with Privateering, for me at least, was that there was no reason for it to be 20 odd songs long - I think we could all make a great 10 track album of our own from the songs - far too many similar blues songs - which themselves recalled previous songs like You Can't Beat the House etc. So the standouts got a bit lost - but when you consider the great songs on the album...Haul Away, Submariner, Radio City, Yon Two Crows, Miss You Blues - they are great and powerful but sit them alongside lots of blues - which sound a little inauthentic - and the power is diluted. The slightly odd thing is that there was much more cause for a double album for this project as the standard of songs is so high - much less so so over the piece on Privateering. 

[Marikablue]

The problem with Privateering, for me at least, was that there was no reason for it to be 20 odd songs long - I think we could all make a great 10 track album of our own from the songs - far too many similar blues songs - which themselves recalled previous songs like You Can't Beat the House etc. So the standouts got a bit lost - but when you consider the great songs on the album...Haul Away, Submariner, Radio City, Yon Two Crows, Miss You Blues - they are great and powerful but sit them alongside lots of blues - which sound a little inauthentic - and the power is diluted. The slightly odd thing is that there was much more cause for a double album for this project as the standard of songs is so high - much less so so over the piece on Privateering.

Agree a lot with you, to many weak songs for the Privateering double album. It could have been a very very perfect and strong album, if only 12 songs were released as a standard album 

PS : I like the song Mighty Man, but it's not one of my faves........

[nababo]

The problem with Privateering, for me at least, was that there was no reason for it to be 20 odd songs long - I think we could all make a great 10 track album of our own from the songs - far too many similar blues songs - which themselves recalled previous songs like You Can't Beat the House etc. So the standouts got a bit lost - but when you consider the great songs on the album...Haul Away, Submariner, Radio City, Yon Two Crows, Miss You Blues - they are great and powerful but sit them alongside lots of blues - which sound a little inauthentic - and the power is diluted. The slightly odd thing is that there was much more cause for a double album for this project as the standard of songs is so high - much less so so over the piece on Privateering.

One of the problems is that no-one in this forum would agree on which songs to keep out. For me, for instance, Haul away wasn't a good song...

[Simon]

Dream of the Drowned Submariner/Haul Away?

[Dutchessy]

Dream of the Drowned Submariner/Haul Away?

No, Fish and the Bird   

[Simon]

Yep missed that one 

[LoveExpresso]

I get the idea, Simon. Very clever to find the old songs in the new ones, but it was worked out already in all those endless single song threads weeks ago..

LE

[yontwocrows]

I just put the informations from the interview to the right song, so that the don't get lost. That's what Mark said about the song:

"It’s the same with “Mighty Man,” for instance. It’s from reading about about the navvies who came over to the UK from Ireland and built the whole infrastructure that we have now — the dams and canals, then later on the railways and roads and houses. You name it, they built it. I happened to read a lovely book called “I Could Read the Sky.” It’s beautifully written by Timothy O’Grady, but Steve Pyke plays just as important a role with these wonderful photographs and portraits. It’s a very moving book, and one of the things that this character says he can do is, “I could read the sky.” I didn’t use that line, obviously. I wouldn’t. But the third verse of “Mighty Man” is about him listing the things he could do, like standing up on horseback. That was from “I Could Read the Sky.”

(http://www.salon.com/2015/03/28/mark_knopfler_this_getting_older_stuff_ain%E2%80%99t_for_wimps/( Interview by Stephen Deusner)

[superval99]

I just put the informations from the interview to the right song, so that the don't get lost. That's what Mark said about the song:

"It’s the same with “Mighty Man,” for instance. It’s from reading about about the navvies who came over to the UK from Ireland and built the whole infrastructure that we have now — the dams and canals, then later on the railways and roads and houses. You name it, they built it. I happened to read a lovely book called “I Could Read the Sky.” It’s beautifully written by Timothy O’Grady, but Steve Pyke plays just as important a role with these wonderful photographs and portraits. It’s a very moving book, and one of the things that this character says he can do is, “I could read the sky.” I didn’t use that line, obviously. I wouldn’t. But the third verse of “Mighty Man” is about him listing the things he could do, like standing up on horseback. That was from “I Could Read the Sky.”

(http://www.salon.com/2015/03/28/mark_knopfler_this_getting_older_stuff_ain%E2%80%99t_for_wimps/( Interview by Stephen Deusner)

Good idea, yontwocrows!        

Thanks RKD, I enjoyed it very much!   

[LoveExpresso]

Thanks very much! Haven't read this interview, so these lines are a real surprise for me - as I love this track so much, one of my favourite tracker tracks.
Will honestly have a look after this book later today.

LE

[yontwocrows]

It's the same book from where the art pictures in the album notes are taken. Maybe the title was also an inspiration for the album cover...

[LoveExpresso]

It seems the book had a short life as German translation. It is out-of-print now but I found and ordered a copy. Steve Pyke is mentioned as co-author. Mark was obviously quite impressed by this book.

LE

[yontwocrows]

I ordered it too. I read some reviews and got hooked