As Dire Straits’ seminal album Brothers in Arms celebrates its 40th anniversary, legendary six-stringer Mark Knopfler looks back on the songwriting process of the record's key tracks in an exclusive interview with Guitar World, and how four notes can make – or break – a song and its legacy.
Starting with Walk of Life – undisputedly one of the band's biggest commercial hits – Knopfler recollects, “Walk of Life came from a big spell of listening to Cajun music –that’s the accordion lick, played on a keyboard by Guy Fletcher – combined with a rockabilly guitar rhythm. That would have been played on my red ’83 Schecter Telecaster.”
Meanwhile, Money for Nothing featured his ’83 Les Paul and revolved around the clawhammer playing style. “It’s just picking that pattern, and you mask off a lot of the notes, try to play the right ones,” he explains.
“With that song, I was listening to a lot of ZZ Top, things like Gimme All Your Lovin. That boogie they played was right up my alley. I still love it. That’s what it’s all about for me. Boogie is a big part of where I’m from. You know, it almost comes from a fingerstyle perspective, just cranked up a little bit and smokin’ along. Boogie doesn’t really have an overplayed vibe, it just rocks.”
As for the title track, the inimitable Brothers in Arms, well, it's all about the first four notes. “If you think about the first four notes I play on guitar – I’ve tried doing other intros live, and they just don’t work,” he confesses.
“People have bought tickets and you can see them thinking, ‘That’s not Brothers in Arms.’ That’s not to say you have to play the guitar part the same way every time. Once I’ve played those four notes, then I can start to improvise.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Knopfler looks back on his jams with fellow fingerstyle legend Chet Atkins and discusses the treasured Gibson he received as a gift from a rock hero.
