(16) Matchstick Man

[Robson]

I suspected so:)

[Jules]

I suspected so:)

I knew I had read about that story before...

[TommyJ88]

A nice one, if you liked Heart of Oak, you’ll like this. In fact, part of the music is lifted directly from that song.

[Love Expresso]

The magic of Mark with a guitar...

Although it is so similiar and even "no one invited you you know" is exactly from Heart Of Oaks, the tone is so different and warm that you van feel the silence at that place and the warm feelings from  that moment...

I stay with my idea that a complete album with Mark in acoustic alone would be songwriter's heaven..

LE

[qjamesfloyd]

I would prefer an album of Mark's acoustic demos.

[regmka]

I stay with my idea that a complete album with Mark in acoustic alone would be songwriter's heaven..

Yeah, I yearning for such album since River of Grog. And this track is the great addition to acoustic collection.

[quizzaciously]

Personally I like Heart Of Oak much better, because it's more creative, I mean the lyrics. In Matchstick Man lyrics is so personal I almost feel like I'm stepping into somebody's private life and I'll definitely will not sing this song for myself, which I did with Heart Of Oak. I'm not a fan of extremely autobiographical songs, to me it's more interesting actually to hear the story from the man himself in prose. Besides, in Hart Of Oak there's strict rhythm, there as in Matchstick Man the rhythm is a little bit more vague. Honestly, I was surprised to hear something SO close to Heart Of Oak and of course the similarity is a bummer. So for people who've missed Heart Of Oak for some reason, they cay listen to this song instead.

[Jules]

When I listen to songs like this one with parts clearly like "heart of oak" I always think:

-he didn't notice about it?
-nobody else, like his producer notice about it?
-if so, nobody tells him he's repeating himself?
-did he mind about it?

[PensaGhost]

the whole album is full of already known parts and melodies

that's probably why he/they chose to have a different background groove/drums/rythm, to sound fresh and new, and they succeeded

[superval99]

When I listen to songs like this one with parts clearly like "heart of oak" I always think:

-he didn't notice about it?
-nobody else, like his producer notice about it?
-if so, nobody tells him he's repeating himself?
-did he mind about it?

This one is too like Heart of Oak for me, but not so good.   Maybe it will grow, who knows?

[Jules]

Well, the melody is not so beautiful but it has a very personal MK story...

[Love Expresso]

After the first three listens I totally forgot about Heart Of Oak.. I love this song so much. His voice sounds awesome. I admit that it is a melody that is able to make me cry... beautiful last track.

LE

[Jules]

After the first three listens I totally forgot about Heart Of Oak.. I love this song so much. His voice sounds awesome. I admit that it is a melody that is able to make me cry... beautiful last track.

LE

He wanted it to be the last song of the two editions, that didn't happen with tracker, so he really wanted it to be the last song in this record.

[dmg]

Nice song but acoustic ones don't usually get my heart going.  Maybe I have a heart of oak...

[quizzaciously]

Complete song in Guitar Pro tablature (YES, I said that): https://tabs.ultimate-guitar.com/tab/mark_knopfler/matchstick_man_guitar_pro_2518500

If you want to try to sing it, here's a simple computer-generated backing track using samples.

Backingtrack: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1hragxW4djdmQKey-l0Qq64HiOTFssVUC

PDF: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1k4AiXEBDduXPR5UWx4w2QCfha0bXKhPr