markknopfler.com:
Devotees and newcomers will have their early favourites, perhaps including the funky opener ‘Two Pairs Of Hands,’ inspired by a story shared by percussionist Danny Cummings about a memorable malapropism; the classic riffing of ‘Ahead Of The Game’; the country swing of ‘Smart Money’: the gripping storytelling of ‘Scavengers Yard,’ ‘Tunnel 13’ and others; the closing nod to his beloved Tyne on ‘One Deep River,’ and the list goes on.
The title track reflects Knopfler’s deep affection for the river that ran through not just through his childhood, but his whole life. ‘Crossing the Tyne is always on your mind,’ he says. ‘It’s what you were doing when you were leaving as a youngster and that feeling is always the same every time you do it. You’re heading out or you’re coming back, and it just connects with your childhood. The power of it doesn’t go away.’
‘Ahead Of The Game’ has plenty to do with Mark’s own apprenticeship as a performing musician. ‘It all goes back to bands playing live,’ he says. ‘In some way, I was thinking about Nashville, because when I first went out there, it must have been in the early ’80s and all the bands in the bars downtown were playing the hits. And that’s fine.
‘What I was trying to say is that’s an achievement to actually get to a place where you’ve got employment, and you’ve got yourself a gig. I mean, statistically, what are the odds of making it? If you stopped to think about that, you’d hardly take a step further, would you?
‘’Two Pairs of Hands’ would just be a song trying to explain what it’s like coping with all of the info and trying to collate everything when you’re standing in the middle of the stage with a huge band. You’ve got a big audience around you and you’re just trying to process all of this stuff at the same time.’
‘Tunnel 13’ is a new example of Knopfler’s eye and ear for a gripping yarn, an instinct that goes back to his journalistic training in the years before Dire Straits became one of the biggest bands in the world. Reminiscent of his telling of the story of adventurers Mason and Dixon in ‘Sailing To Philadelphia,’ it centres on the real-life Western tale of a train robbery staged in the Siskiyou Mountains in 1923.
The song’s bridge to modern times is skilfully constructed, since the redwood used in the construction of the ‘Tunnel 13’ at the scene of that century-old crime became one of the most treasured woods in the making of the flat-top guitars that Knopfler reveres so much.
Those and a hundred other carefully-curated lyrical and musical details all go towards making One Deep River a new landmark in what is, for all of his innate modesty, a uniquely storied career. Says Knopfler of his undimmed motivation: ‘I’ve never heard a better definition of it since Gillian Welch told me one day: ‘All I want to do is write a good song and make a good record of it.’ Those two things sum it up for me.’
