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Home » Sultans of Swing: over and over and over…

Sultans of Swing: over and over and over…

The New Neo Posted on by

[NOTE: I think we all need a break from depressing politics right about now.]

There are certain songs that you love the very first time you hear them. At least, that’s the way it is for me. One of them was Dire Straits’ “Sultans of Swing” in the late 1970s. I first heard it on the radio and even though I couldn’t understand many of the lyrics at the time, I didn’t care. It got my attention – boy, did it ever – catchy, melodic, rhythmic, unusual.

Sometimes with a song like that, a person gets tired of it. But with “Sultans” – a song I’ve heard over and over in many iterations – that hasn’t happened yet. Guitarist and vocalist (and songwriter) Mark Knopfler is able to vary it each time in a way that makes it sound fresh. And this is true although the song itself features much repetition of some of its lines. It’s hypnotic and yet somehow simultaneously energizing as well as emotionally moving.

Here we have YouTube’s “British guitarist,” whose commentary I really enjoy, opining on a “Sultans” version Knopfler performed in 1996 (or rather, a portion of a version). That’s almost twenty years after the original, and Knopfler is no longer very young. But the joys of repetition never get old, as long as it’s a master at work. How does Knopfler do it? To repeat and repeat and repeat and make it different every time, and in every line? In this particular version (and many others, even more frenetic ones) he’s so calm, like a zen master. Here, he doesn’t even bother to sing the words. And yet the piece is brilliant, and so melodic it can make your heart ache with pleasure.

[NOTE: Other famous songs I recall liking immediately on first hearing them were “Yesterday” by the Beatles (actually, many songs by the Beatles), “Satisfaction” by the Rolling Stones, and “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” by Bob Dylan. There are plenty more. But my love for “Sultans,” and my desire to listen to it many times, is more intense than my feelings about those other songs.]

Comments

Sultans of Swing: over and over and over… — 85 Comments

  2. The anticipation of the closing guitar solo is what makes it endure. Never gets old. I feel the same way waiting for Daltrey’s yell at the end of ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’ followed by ‘meet the new boss same as the old boss’ as the closing line of the song.

    Interesting how certain songs you can never tire of.

  3. I think the song is about a group of older jazz and blues musicians that played in a club that the young Mark Knopfler was working at. They are the ‘Sultans Of Swing’.

  6. I liked “Don’t Think Twice….” Not the Beatles or Stones. Had a friend missing her dearest who really liked Glen Campbell, Gentle on My Mind. That was an ear worm for years.
    There’s so much music over the last fifty years I had no patience with. One here or there.
    However, in 1995, driving home from a fraternity reunion of classes roughly 63-68, I hit on a station playing the hot Sixties stuff. I may not have cared for it, but the association –didn’t like them, either–with the old days hit like a semi going the wrong way. Sheesh. Memories, feelings, things I’d forgotten. A woman telling me how things were in a sorority house when one of the women got The Call from her BF’s parents. Classes. Friends at various employments and projects. Got home just about the time it ended. Stayed up all night looking out the window. So I guess the music meant something….

  7. Richard Aubrey … I used to listen to music on FM all the time because, as you said, it meant something.

    Then, around 1985 or so I guess, FM radio changed. Maybe it got too automated … or … it lost its “I Don’t Know What.” So it stopped being interesting, at least to me.

    It’s great that now I can see videos of my favorites from the 60’s on the internet.

  8. Tuvea. There used to be a genre called “easy listening”. Mostly orchestral versions of hits from Broadway up to the Sixties, maybe. Folk ,pop, country, rock, etc. Lot of stations did that. Used to have a cable provider which had a station doing that. Not sure now.

    Youtube will give you a lot of stuff from the never heard it before, to classics. Medieval, old Celtic, fantasy, classical, rock…..the whole nine yards. I wanted to hear “The Ballad of Rodger Young” Must have been twenty versions. And sometimes long comment threads. Pick something and look at the choices, the related stuff, but take a sack lunch It’ll be a while before you come back.

  9. If I ever doubted there was a God who loves us and wants us to be happy, Mark Knopfler’s work would have removed it.

    Mr. Knopfler is, in addition to being a brilliant lead, also a brilliant collaborator. Here are two of my absolute favorites:

    Time Out of Mind by Steely Dan. Mr. Knopfler is on lead here, with the equally brilliant Jeff Porcaro on drums, David Sanborn on saxophone, and Michael MacDonald and Valerie Simpson on backing vocals. In my mind, it’s every bit as magical as those names suggest it should be.

    I Think I Love You Too Much by the late, great Jeff Healey. Actually, it’s by Mark Knopfler, who presented it to Mr. Healey as a gift, and offers both rhythm guitar and backing vocals here. The combination of hurt and pissed off expressed here is a dark joy.

  10. Knopfler is incredibly talented. Who could else could have written and performed a truly great song about how McDonalds hamburgers chain got started?

    “Boom, Like That”:

    https://youtu.be/NuQrmdu6quc

    [Hope that link works; I’m on my cell]

  11. My favorite part:

    “And Harry doesn’t mind if he doesn’t make the scene. He’s got a daytime job. He’s doing all right!”

  13. Mark Knopfler is certainly one of great guitar players of the rock genre but is also a very interesting vocalist. He may not be technically great but it is his phrasing and delivery that make him stand out. This song and ‘Money For Nothing’ are the most well known examples.

    My favorite line in ‘Money For Nothing’ is ‘Hawaiian noises? Bangin’ on the bongos like chimpanzee’.

  14. These Neo affinities are always striking to me. I feel exactly the same way about this song. I heard it on my car radio while driving home from my office one evening “back then” and didn’t want it to end. It took me a while to find the actual name of the song and who did it. Now I have seen many iterations and search for more. Your words: it makes “your heart ache with pleasure,” are exquisite. A few notes on a chart. Melodic wheels turning within wheels. Genius coursing through fingertips. The sweet heart ache still has not ended. Thanks for this, Neo.

  16. Always loved Mark Knopfler’s guitar-playing. My favorite was his work on the “Slow Train Coming” album by Bob Dylan. But I do love Dire Straits (I have every album, and yes I still play my vinyl LP’s)

  17. I feel the same way about Sultans and Knopfler. Neo you have described it perfectly in this post. And I’m really enjoying Fil’s videos as is my 10 year old granddaughter. Thank you for the interesting and enjoyable recommendations you share.

  18. For me, “Sultans of Swing” is a signature song. I was 12 years old, in the seventh grade when it was a hit, and it first began playing on the radio where I lived in January of 1979- right at the time that I started to listen to contemporary pop music and got interested in it. Indeed, I first listened to American Top 40 during a Sunday blizzard during Presidents’ Day Weekend, and “Sultans of Swing” was one of the songs played. I also liked it the very first time I ever heard it- it is one of the first 45s that I ever purchased- I bought it, “Le Freak”, “Heaven Knows”, and “Do You Think I’m Sexy.” at the same time.

    Hearing pretty much any song from that Winter of 78-79 has a profound effect on me. Even just yesterday, I was sampling the songs of that season on Youtube, though “Sultans” wasn’t one of them since I hear it so often on the local classic rock station. One of those songs was linked above by someone- Earth Wind and Fire’s “September”.

  19. Yancey,

    I’m of a similar age and that is when I first remember forming my own opinions about music. The first album I bought with my own money (not really but still) was ‘Breakfast In America’ by Supertramp and I still have such nostalgic feelings if I hear ‘The Logical Song’ or ‘Goodbye Stranger’. I also had ‘Do Ya Think I’m Sexy’ which was so cheesy and a low point for Rod Stewart but was hugely popular.

  21. “Sultans” is easily one of the top ten rock songs of the last 50 years. But Mark Knopfler wrote other great tunes. Lady Writer, (Down to the)Waterline, Brothers in Arms, Money for Nothing, So Far Away and Walk of Life. There’s a live version of Walk of Life floating around YouTube. They speed the song up a bit, and add a pedal steel guitar player solo, which adds a bit of country flavor to it. Pure JOY! Which is the essence of rock and roll.

  22. I have to add to the above: The sound he gets out of his Fender Stratocaster on Sultans is the purest sound I’ve ever heard on a rock song.

  23. Knopfler has it all down, and tightly wrapped. I never much cared for those who shred the music just to shred it.

    Here’s another guitar player and who never quite made it, but still what talent that we lost way too soon, Roy Buchanan, R.I.P, 1939-1988:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMcjPZgK9GM

  24. As a guitar equivalent of what golfers call a “hacker” (I’ve been messing around with a guitar since college), I find Knopfler astounding. Not only for all the reasons Fil states, but the fact that he finger picks on an electric guitar and gets that pure sound. The only other I put in that same category is Lindsey Buckingham; who is quite good but maybe a cut below Knopfler. Finger picking on an acoustic guitar is not too difficult even for a hack like me. But to do the same on an electric with the tighter strings and closer spacing is truly remarkable while producing such clean sound.

  25. Love Knopfler. I can easily count a dozen of his other pieces among my favorites, too: Romeo and Juliet, Hand in Hand, Skateaway, Water of Love, Tunnel of Love. He does movie scores, too. I agree about his voice: nothing special about the tone, but his phrasing and style are impeccable.

  26. “Sultans” is easily one of the top ten rock songs of the last 50 years.

    Not even close. The use of 1970 as a divisory line is suboptimal as well. Since Lesley Gore’s last hit was in 1964, best to start with 1965.

  27. I have the opposite reaction to “You light up my life”.
    It was so popular and played so often you couldn’t escape it. I have a distinct memory of hearing it come on the radio changing the station and it was playing on the other station also. It is a perfectly nice little song that I still, forty some years later, turn off when it pops up on the radio.

  28. It is a perfectly nice little song that I still, forty some years later, turn off when it pops up on the radio.

    One of the few songs with romantic themes which deserves to be played is “Kisses Sweeter than Wine”.

  29. It was an OK song, sort of a Dylan-lite thing with a nice easy feel to the band, but Knopfler really do many more decent songs. I remember I bought that album and felt really let down by the rest of it, and by what I heard of what he did next. Maybe there’s a nice “Best Of” compilation somewhere covering his first ten years.

    Someone in the same vein who I think has been more interesting is T-Bone Burnett, even going back to his days with the Alpha Band.

  30. I’m with Neo here. Mark Knopfler’s riff in this melody is considered by many the greatest of all time on electronic guitar. I likewise never stop enjoying this great performance.

  32. ” I used to listen to music on FM all the time because, as you said, it meant something.
    Then, around 1985 or so I guess, FM radio changed.”

    I’ve become convinced that we change, not the music. There is a period of time in your life where these bonds between music and your brain are formed. After a while, it no longer happens. It’s age related and weird as it sounds there are Millennials, GenX/Y/Z’ers who are imprinting rap music which will one day evoke clouds of nostalgia for them.

  33. This piece is a delight, both for the music and for Fil’s admiration and appreciation for it. One notable impression is how Knopfler plays so quietly and delicately, as though he is listening to it himself, not performing. Then part way through there is a place where he gets caught up and starts bouncing on his feet as though to urge on the other players.
    There’s a lot of communication going on between musicians. The drummer stands out.

  34. For Richard Aubrey:
    Please explain: “when one of her BF’s got THE CALL. What is/was THE CALL?
    This is not just to bring clarity to your comment–I would like to know more about what goes on in sororities. Thank you

  35. I’ve become convinced that we change, not the music. There is a period of time in your life where these bonds between music and your brain are formed. After a while, it no longer happens.

    I disagree entirely, just from personal experience. I learned to appreciate old stuff I never would have fancied as a youth. (Whereas my mother had no interest in what constituted popular music ca. 1945; neither did her sisters).

    What actually may be the finest popular song of the last 50-odd years was not a rock song.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCRZZC-DH7M

  36. ArtD, you may be right, I may be right of course! Even if there is a biochemical component as I posit it would still be the case that the “decay” of that reaction might not occur in some people.

  38. I have no idea what the connection was, but “Sultans of Swing” spurred me to finally take the plunge and learn a musical instrument. I was 13 or 14 years old and wanted to play piano, but pianos were big, and seemed expensive, so I focused on trumpet. But I knew trumpets, even used ones, were also not cheap, let alone music lessons, especially on my family’s modest budget. So my plan was, teach myself to play an instrument so I could then ask for a used trumpet as a Christmas gift in the future.

    What was the only instrument I could afford? A $7 Hohner harmonica. In the course of about 2 years I developed into a pretty decent player. Could pretty much play anything playable by ear. So maybe it’s time to ask for that Christmas gift? Around the same time my older sister was dating a guy studying music at her College and, while talking to him about my interest in music he mentioned he had a friend’s trombone lying around in his apartment. His friend was overseas, and it was an old, beat up student model anyway. I could have it until his friend returned.

    I bought myself a “Rubank’s Elementary Method Trombone” book and two years later was playing in Concert band in College, and then Marching band and then several blues and jazz groups. I am currently in an 18 piece swing band playing that same, old, student model trombone*.

    Whenever I hear “Sultans of Swing” (and I agree, it’s a great song) I often wonder how in the hell did that song push me to learn harmonica and trombone; neither of which plays any role in the song whatsoever?!

    *After about two years his friend hadn’t returned or asked about it, so we made a deal. I gave him $100 and if his friend ever asked after the trombone he’d hand his friend the $100.

  39. Rufus, that should give you enough cred to be the President of Fredonia.

  42. Dire Straights “Brothers in Arms” is one of the, if not most, poignant love songs ever written.

  43. Griffin,

    I bought “Breakfast in America” as one of the free 13 albums you got with a membership in the Columbia Record Club (the ads used to appear in the TV Guide, if you remember) in the Summer of 1980. I loved and still love that album. I don’t think much of any of the rest of Supertramp’s work, but that one album was just great beginning to end- not a single weak song on it.

    The first album I ever purchased was “The Wall” by Pink Floyd in the Winter of 1980- shelling out 14 bucks was a big purchase for a 13 year old- to that point I had stuck to 45s.

  44. Ann. Speaking of the late Sixties. Boyfriend–or brother killed in Viet Nam. Or, for that matter, elsewhere. The Cold War wasn’t a safe zone no matter where you were.
    One of the things that happens is no call for the woman in question goes to her. It is transferred–no cell phones, all land lines–to the housemother. She makes the decision whether to call the woman or take a message.
    Calls to professors to rearrange class requirements. Somebody to sit with her. Then she goes home and somebody goes with her, a sister or maybe another friend from school.
    Wonder how many from the folks who comment on Neo’s blog are old enough to have gotten this.

  45. Same here, I remember when it came out…maybe last term at NYU(?) but the melody and guitar was so slick. One of my all-time faves, too. Thanks for sharing.

  46. “Sultans of Swing” is, along with the Doors “Light My Fire,” one of the few songs I remember exactly where I was the first time I heard it — coming back from lunch with some factory friends in the Boston area.

    We were driving that windy scenic road around Mt. Auburn Cemetery and Knopler’s ultra-smooth, pick-less, finger-picking style jumped out at me and the wonderful story he had to tell.

    That was a bad year for me. Mark Knopfler made it better.

  47. Rufus, that’s a great story about your trombone. I picked up trombone in high school after the music director announced that there would be no more players next year. He taught me the basics of how to play over the summertime. I turned out to be a much better trombonist than a trumpeter. Fond memories but I don’t play today.

    JimNorCal mentions listening to FM radio. I listened to AM radio while earning some money on the weekends babysitting. Motown! The greatest music in my opinion. I feel badly for kids today. A lot of schlock that passes for pop music these days. (I suppose I’ll get push back on that statement.)

  48. “Telegraph Road” is another Knopfler masterwork.

    Peter Waters: Absolutely and under-rated.

    That song got me through my cross-country drive after I gave up on Boston to seek (successfully as it turned out) the California dream in 1982.

    OT, but a singer-songwriter I thought was top-notch and could pull off that big symphonic sound Knopfler managed, had a great song, “California, Here I Come,” which for me was the flip-side to “Telegraph Road.”

    “California” combined the happy sound of the original song, albeit in a minor key, with the Lord’s Prayer to create an Exodus out-of-bondage story from a NYC ghetto to the Golden Shores of the West Coast.

    I could relate.

    –Sophie B. Hawkins, “California Here I Come”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tF1K-tlzN2U

  49. I can’t find the story on the net this minute, but as I recall, Mark Knopfler showed up one day on Chet Atkins doorstep and said hi. Chet Atkins said, hello, come on in, let’s go back to my little studio and we’ll play. Out of that they collaborated on a marvelous little album titled “Neck and Neck.”

    Later Chet Atkins said of Knopfler:

    He’s a finger picker but he’s self-taught. I don’t think he’s ever really copied anyone. That’s the guy that comes up with something different usually. He’s a fellow who doesn’t know any better. And he doesn’t play with a pick, he plays with his thumb and forefinger like this. [Atkins mimes] No one else plays that way so he turns out very different. Wonderful player.

    Here’s a sample of Mark and Chet:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxcYNuDecwk&list=RDFegE0Df_Zl8&index=4

    That’s Chet Atkins, man!

  51. My own personal can listen to it over and over song is Reelin’ in the Years. However, Knopfler is pretty great, here is a favorite from him, if anyone wants a nice soothing 8 minutes, with Emmylou Harris. Can’t claim to know anything about guitar playing, but Knopfler seems great here in a non-showy way.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jy3vzdtiXF4

  53. Patrick: The really good rock players could hear the really good country players. And vice-versa.
    ________________________________________________

    Well, there’s thirteen hundred and fifty two
    Guitar pickers in Nashville
    And they can pick more notes than the number of ants
    On a Tennessee ant hill
    Yeah, there’s thirteen hundred and fifty two
    Guitar cases in Nashville
    And any one that unpacks ‘is guitar could play
    Twice as better than I will

    –John Sebastian (Lovin’ Spoonful), “Nashville Cats”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4p7prURvIk

  54. Neo- A note of thanks for this blog post. I had never before visited Fil’s site but have been bingeing on it for the last hour and 45 minutes- had to make myself stop! He’s a fan of some of my favorite artists from “back in the day” (and even more ‘recent’ ones, like Stevie Ray Vaughn).

    A Great find, and thanks again (can’t wait to go back to his analyses and share his site with my friends!).

    – Carl

  56. Richard: Chet Atkins. What can anyone say?

    Here’s “British Guitarist” doing a YouTube on Chet Atkins and Jerry Reed I watched a few years ago.

    “British guitarist analyses Chet Atkins AND Jerry Reed’s stupendous ability level!”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJ738OqD-pA

    In the comments is a quote from Jeff Beck, a rock guitar god in his own right, who could hold his head up with Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page:

    There are a million great players in Nashville. Thank God they never leave Nashville or I’d be out of a job.

    There’s a reason Mark Knopfler looked up Chet Atkins later in his career.

  57. Turns out “British Guitarist” has a YouTube on a Knopfler/Atkins collaboration:

    “British guitarist reacts to Mark Knopflers AND Chet Atkins EPIC melodies!”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pobaEIaHlAE

    Knopfler hangs in well enough, but it’s clear Atkins is playing — with all this fingers — at a whole ‘nother level.

  58. Of course Chet Atkins never wrote a song like “Sultans of Swing” or put together the inimitable “Dire Straits” sound.

    I remember a Knopfler interview where he was asked about that sound and he basically said, “You want to know how I do that? Good luck.”

  59. Really great song. Fantastic guitar, interesting voice. Almost enough to make me try to learn guitar, or piano, but it’s so hard to practice, being poor at it, rather than read more blogs (& comments!), and comment.

    Walk of Life is a fun Karoke song (Mark’s voice is in my range! ).

    Have you noticed recent “Money for Nothing” versions have taken out the politically incorrect verse? The one about the “Faggot with the earring and the make-up…” I was surprised a couple of years ago to hear the shortened song on the Slovak radio. (Sting’s background vocals are great)

    This 8 min video by Fil is also great because it’s so short. Not like Fil’s (next for me) 26 min video of BTO “You ain’t seen nothing yet” where Fil is almost teaching you how to play the song, plus theory about the simple major chords.

    It’s known that most of our brains need to hear a language around 2 years old in order to learn it as a native. I’m sure there’s an age based puberty-maturation effect on what you listen to and like in your teen years that stays with you your whole life as “special” in an easy familiarity way. Even if many, or most, folk learn to appreciate and enjoy other music & styles later, most, or at least many folk have a “teen-nostalgic” emotional connection to many songs from their teen years. An emotional connection different than any of their later acquired musical tastes.

    Too bad so much music is being contaminated with political correctness. It seems likely that so much lyrical anti-capitalist emotionalism in songs assists in establishing an emotional attachment to anti-capitalism. Sadly.

  60. Here’s just one list of greatest ever guitar solos:
    Stevie Ray Vaughan – Little Wing.
    The Jimi Hendrix Experience – All Along the Watchtower.
    Van Halen – Eruption. …
    Lynyrd Skynyrd – Free Bird.
    Dire Straits – Sultans of Swing.
    Led Zeppelin – Stairway to Heaven.

    My most often listened to of these is the Hendrix version of Dylan’s “All Along the Watchtower”, tho I’m not a big Hendrix fan.

    Had not before heard this live version of (Eddie) Van Halen (LEAST listened to), but it’s pretty good:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9r-NxuYszg

    That cigarette had a better life than me. (a comment)

    Some great solos verge on (or become?) guitar playing masturbation, despite, or because of, such fantastic virtuosity. [now at 9 of 13 min, it’s become…] Reminds me of the best technical guitarist Al Di Meola, who is so perfect but I recall almost sterile, heartlessly exact. He came on tour to Bratislava but I decided not to see him. (We skipped Leonard Cohen, too.) Zappa joked about him as another great Italian guitarist on “Joe’s Garage”.

    My favorite general guitarist remains Carlos Santana, who I did see a couple of times in late 70s – early 80s in the Bay Area, as I was a late blooming “teen” in my early 20s. Here’s a mix of some.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqEJUK11hkY
    “Give me your heart, make it real. Or just forget about it…”

    Santana has a popular collaboration with Latin Jazz Sax guy Gato Barbieri, “Europa”. My favorite from Gato is the great great long song Encuentros:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDQkAQed3Xw

    The Fil videos explaining song interest and dynamics help me understand why I like it so well.

    Which reminds me of a good Eurovision song that had a couple of great Sax passages. 4 min original song:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gy1B3agGNxw

    The Sax parts were so good, so epic, that some folk extracted them, mixed them together, and repeated. For 10 hours. (One day at work I listened to it all day, was cool). [Search Epic Sax Guy]
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZcmTl_1ER8

    My kids were teens – they still think it’s Epic.
    Me too, but not in that special teen way.

  61. Eeyore, the Bambino was “The Sultan of Swat”, IIRC. Close, but no cigar…

  62. Re “The Call”… I assume it was to tell a young woman that her young man had been killed, perhaps in military service. The parents would have been the first to be informed. Sorry, that sounds so clinical.

  63. Ray. That’s true. They would call the woman in question, whether it was a brother or her young man. After that, the protocols would be more or less as I described.

    My fraternity chapter only lost one guy in those times and his brother was already in the service, so the notification was military to parents and military to brother at the same time.
    No idea how the chapter was informed.

    Don’t know how things went when it was a dormitory. Some I was in had maybe six hundred on the men’s side and the same on the woman’s side. What the dorm advser was supposed to do….. Likely the call was from family to woman. Support afterwards….no idea.

  64. “Take it to the Limit” – the Eagles. Once upon a time many years ago, I did aerobatic flying, in sailplanes. Plenty of limits to be carefully respected! I played it on the way home after each session as a way of unwinding after the intensity of focusing on those limits! Never play it anymore, I guess because I don’t do crazy stuff anymore, but lately I’m wondering…

  65. This thread demonstrates that there is no accounting for musical tastes, even among moderately like-minded people. Or, perhaps better, that individual emotional resonances and contexted memories shape our reactions to a commonly overlooked degree.

    I am surprised, but forced to admit, that appreciation for a particular performance is probably as much or more the result of emotional formation, context, and dispositions, than intellect.

    Some of the most deeply felt and appreciated pieces referenced here, whatever their virtuosity, leave me leaden or nonplussed or even recoiling.

    Anything I might pose, would certainly provoke similar reactions in others, no matter what music critics, or the pop charts once recorded.

    Perhaps this should not be surprising to us as the evidence is with us that our very own tastes can change with time, circumstance and experience. And pieces, particularly “anthems” or novelty works that once resonated, may more recently have come to seem tedious, stupid, shallow, juvenile, and even morally oppressive to listen to.

    It’s no wonder then that the Euro-Rock, Disco, Country Rock, or Doo Wop tunes, not to mention jazz fusion or other rock esoterica that still gets the juices flowing in some, should leave others deadly cold or even repelled, despite the creativity or technique involved.

    To some extent it might be parallel to the reaction an academy grad might have to watching a Navy fullback broken field run the ball back 90 yards for a game winning touchdown; as opposed to the same spectator dully viewing the acrobatic antics of a troupe of trained chimps. The one you identify with is the more satisfying, regardless of the technical/mechanical difficulty …

    With music as with much else, in order to appreciate it, “I guess you had to have been there …”.

    And perhaps predisposed, as well.

  66. Hey Neo- I usually use Duck Duck Go, but when I Googled “The New Neo”, Dr. Google gave me your link but said that he had no description and implied that you won’t let Dr. Google write a description of your site.
    I am not sure I’d want Dr. Google to write a description of any site that features neo-conservative politics. I’m just a conservative, but to the left you’re an apostate.
    It looks to me that Dr. Google wants to label your site (or any site) with his words rather than yours.
    I like your writing and blog. Madness is not inevitable. Fight the good fight.
    One more thing: Any conservative writer who is not just as concerned with culture and art as with politics isn’t really a conservative, so thank you for your discussions of books, music, and ballet.

  67. I’m sure there’s an age based puberty-maturation effect on what you listen to and like in your teen years that stays with you your whole life as “special” in an easy familiarity way.

    Tom Grey: True. Doctor Tim called that “imprinting.”

    However, some of us were fortunate to be going through puberty when the Really Good Music came out!

  68. Richard Aubrey; Ray Van Dune:

    Only next of kin was officially notified by the armed forces. Then the family would be in charge of telling the girlfriend, and they could do that any way they wanted. In the very large school I attended, there was no support or special services available for the bereaved from the school at all, except the usual counseling if the person wanted to seek it out. But nothing specialized.

    I don’t know how common it was in college to have a boyfriend in the service in Vietnam. I can speak from my own experience, because that was my situation: I knew of no one else in that position. I was completely alone. Now, obviously, I know there must have been others. Perhaps quite a few others. But I never met a single one. There were no organizations for us to join. Nothing.

    When my boyfriend was wounded, his parents called ME to find out if I knew anything, because they hadn’t heard from him in ages. Well, I hadn’t heard from him, either, so that’s all I could tell them. I had never met them, by the way. He must have given them my phone number before he left for Vietnam.

    A week or two later I got a letter from him. He was in the hospital, recovering from his wounds. He went right back into combat, by the way, after he recovered.

    It was my senior year and I lived in an apartment, so we had a land line. “We” is me and my three other roommates.

  69. Anything I might pose, would certainly provoke similar reactions in others, no matter what music critics, or the pop charts once recorded.

    DNW: So what gets your “juices flowing,” regardless of others’ opinions? It seem you are quick enough to let us know what doesn’t.

    Bach, Beethoven, Charles Ives, lieder, zydeco, zouk, “How Much is That Little Doggie in the Window?”

    I don’t judge.

  70. Many artists/writers/musicians I love were critical or commercial flops, at least for some of their careers. For instance, “Rolling Stone” published dire reviews of Led Zeppelin, Leonard Cohen and the Grateful Dead. (Not that I assume RS has high credibility in these parts, but as an example.)

    I read such reviews and often think, well, the reviewers are right about what they criticize. Leonard Cohen is an indifferent musician, his vocal range is from A to B, his lyrics tend to be depressing, his melodies are nothing to write home about, but … that’s not why people listen to Leonard Cohen.

    There is a sum-of-the-parts effect happening which, to get mathematical, peaks in a third dimension beyond the regular two dimensions of criticism.

  71. I don’t know how common it was in college to have a boyfriend in the service in Vietnam.

    I think among the most vulnerable birth cohorts (1943-50), about 17% of the men were posted to Viet Nam at some point.

  72. Art Deco:

    That was the age group as a whole, wasn’t it?

    I’m talking about college students. College students (and later, grad students) got deferments as long as they stayed in college. College students were not as large a percentage of that age group as they are now, either.

    That was the policy de facto when I was in school, anyway. My boyfriend was drafted because he didn’t do his work (although he was smart) and he flunked out. That’s when he was drafted. I think policies fluctuated on this from time to time. And every male at 18 had to get a draft card and report, whether they actually were drafted or not.

    As I stated, I am the only person I knew in my very large college who had a boyfriend serving in Vietnam.

  73. Neo. I notified next of kin and did survivor assistance
    I was at Ft. Bliss when my brother was killed and my company commander came to my room that morning. The Air Force had ,somehow, tracked my folks to a vacation at Colonial Williamsburg. So when I called home, my folks already knew.
    My current wife was one who had a boyfriend in the service…me.
    So did several of her friends.
    Many of the guys I knew in the service had some kind of relationship at home.
    Had a Brigade formal once. Our cute little WAC lieutenant, assistant adjutant was announced as “off limits”–said the colonel to the studs at the lieutenants’ table. She was engaged. Sheesh. A civilian….I bet he didn’t cast a shadow and had a handshake like a slab of warm bacon. But Kathy handled the notification roster and nobody wanted to get crossways with her. Probably why she didn’t want anything to do, socially, with us hard corps hot shots.
    Four of the guys, who’d been in various college choirs, did a few songs. One was a mix of “Don’t let the sun catch you…” and “no fair at all” Wrong song for the moment. Bad for the mascara.

  74. Richard Aubrey:

    Yes, as I said, next of kin were notified of deaths. Family. But if you were “just” a girlfriend like me, there was nothing official at all, as far as I know.

    And in my case, for whatever reason, even my boyfriend’s parents were not notified when he was wounded. Perhaps they were notified later, but neither I nor they had heard a thing for two or three weeks after he was wounded and in the hospital the whole time. That was my experience.

  75. I’m talking about college students. College students (and later, grad students) got deferments as long as they stayed in college. College students were not as large a percentage of that age group as they are now, either.

    Just reciting here.

    I think about 25% of each cohort had some tertiary schooling at that time.

    I believe the Selective Service System ceased to grant or renew graduate school deferments after 1967, and that undergraduate student deferments were discontinued at the end of 1969 with the advent of the draft lottery. Prior to 1970, the Selective Service System had a stock of those eligible for conscription (classified “!-A”) – men who hadn’t served yet and hadn’t any deferments. Men in the pool were examined for induction in birth order (though most pre-emptively enlisted). Your student deferment delayed your induction or enlistment, but once you lost it, the older you were the more vulnerable you were unless you’d married and had children while in school.

    Somewhere in the last 30 years I’ve seen some social data on the soldier population as it was in 1969. No clue where to locate it now, but the gist of it was that the educational attainments of those in uniform did not differ much from the general population. In my father’s time, the plan was you finished your degree and enlisted (unless you were disqualified for service). My father and his closest friend were poor students, and both had the experience of being called in by the dean and told they would be welcome back once they’d done some time in the service. Degree followed by enlistment was (I think) the modal pathway for male collegians up until about 1967.

  77. “DNW: So what gets your “juices flowing,” regardless of others’ opinions? It seem you are quick enough to let us know what doesn’t.
    Bach, Beethoven, Charles Ives, lieder, zydeco, zouk, “How Much is That Little Doggie in the Window?”
    I don’t judge.”

    LOL, And I thought I was being evenhanded and nonpartisan.

    So, you obviously subconsciously recalled, or otherwise intuited, that I previously stated I was by and large repelled by the pop tunes of the late 40s and early 50s; when as a kind of research project, I discovered what they were. The only thing I think of as equally bad is disco, and the creepy afternoon delight and muskrat love shit of the 70s.

    But I also, by and large, recognize the validity of some of the points you have made regarding the melding of middling effects, and how they may produce something estimable once combined.

    Famously, La vie an Rose/ Piaf, maybe, eh?

    But my own tastes in music are not very profound. And, I listen to music more for enjoyment than to get the juices flowing.

    As for styles of music, well sorry guys, but as I have previously admitted, I got kind of burned out on rock and country, and drifted toward jazz standard performances that tend to go well with cocktails on the patio.

    What has come to bore me, and seems dreary, is anthem music. Whereas I once was mesmerized by Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, and still appreciate the musicianship, I would not really bother to go out of my was to play that, or Clapton, nor the psychedelic rock I once liked, nor the British invasion bands that my older friends introduced me to, a half decade or more after their releases.

    If Green River comes up on some oldies station, I’ll crank it up for Auld Lang Syne, but doubt there are two other Creedence tunes I would bother to sit through. Same with my one time favorites – the early stuff only- of Steve Miller, or Dave Edmunds.

    I “was there”, as you were, during the MTV classic era, and was fascinated, in a mild way, by everything from Nirvana, to Billy Idol, and Lenny Kravitz. But while I’ll listen to an old tune here and there. I would not put the stuff out for friends or spend so much as an hour straight with it on on my own. Those mix tapes of Modern English, Green Day, and Hootie and the Blowfish, lay in some back corner of a entertainment center cabinet somewhere.

    I remember when A Gentleman’s Honor by Phillip Glass came out. I ran out and bought it and spent some hours hypnotized. But it never compelled me to go in search of more of the same.

    Bluegrass and Irish music? I was “into it” for awhile, as so many were who listened to WFAE in Charlotte, or some of their Arkansas Traveller or Fionna Ritchie programming.

    Then of course there was the period in college when I stumbled across reissues of Django Reinhardt, who I had read mentioned on the liner notes of a Chet Atkins album when I was a kid. I went out and bought everything I could find as “gifts for my dad”. Even the fact that that POS Woody Allen began shortly thereafter to use some of the tunes as background music, did not deter me. And Allen was not a known reprobate at the time anyway.

    Classical. Yeah, to a limited degree. Was a big fan of Bream and Parkening performances. Never liked Williams sterile guitar work.

    YouTube has proved to be a real boon for someone like me. You can cherry pick through a performer’s oevure and take the good and leave the rest.

    In this vein, I recently discovered two Jerry Reed performances, Wayfaring Stranger, and Georgia on My Mind, that thankfully exhibit none of that awful shtick he was notorious for. They are from 1969; and in Wayfaring, he does a clever thing that is more identified with Peter Frampton years later, than ever with any white country performer, all while playing Bose Nova style.

    Skilled if oddball older and overlooked performances like that hold my interest mostly.

    While not an oddball exactly, I’d recommend Lenny Breau’s performance of Lullaby of Birdland, as an underappreciated minor gem. Don’t bother with any of this unless you have good speakers and are interested in guitar. m.youtube.com/watch?v=VFdETRF87o0

    For those who didn’t get their fill of Tom Jonesey late 60s cool when they were 10 years old, I’d suggest they check out the half dozen worthwhile and definitely unconventional offbeat performances by some English 60s trio called the Peddlars. “On a Clear Day” is one example. m.youtube.com/watch?v=yxf1IFgPH5s

    “Ebb Tide” is interesting, as are” People”, and “Say No More”. All songs I hate in themselves, by the way. LOL

    A back stage performance I stumbled across about two years ago, is “Stomping at the Savoy” with Tommy Emmanuel (whose demonstrativeness and antics I don’t usually care for), some former youth prodigy named Richard Smith, now dangerously obese ( a damn shame) and another skilled studio guitarist named Jim Nichols. If you are a guitarist, if you have good speakers, and if you appreciate a fun if virtuoso impromptu performance, check it out. I think it ranks with the Julian Lage and Frank Vignola “Caravan” capture made at the luthier convention. What Lage does there, using a 70 year old Gibson L5 is nothing short of supernatural.

    So, if predisposed …Otherwise beware. By the way, You will have to seek it yourself, as Godda#ned YouTube is effen with my tablet at the moment.

    Anyway … because you asked.

  78. Art Deco

    As I was recalling the Sixties pop on my way home from the reunion, I was thinking of all the women there. I knew almost all of them, which is to say they’d been at least dating the guys prior to service. I hadn’t expected that, maybe thirty years later. And most of the guys had served.
    Perhaps that was an odd bunch. Never occurred to me then or later that the same wouldn’t have been the case with any other bunch of old college buddies from that era.

    I recall when I was a Training Officer in an Infantry AIT company, some of the guys would be formed up after dinner, presuming no night training, and marched off to GED. When my father was in (WWII), it was called “Three R” school, colloquially, so the guys could at least read road signs and so forth.

    So, ultimately, no functional illiterates as far as I knew and with the GED, they had documentation.

    But to get back to the music….still gets me. And youtube has some collections called Viet Nam music.

    As I said, I didn’t follow pop music much back in those days. Lots of treasures on youtube. The Red Army Choir has “ave maria” with a fantastic soprano. And Paula bar Giese does “Mille Regretz”, along with other items. Great voice. Whatever you think of the selections,Vaughn Monroe has the pipes. And somebody, maybe a lot of somebodies, put Kipling to music and Leslie Fish does “Cold Iron” to make your skin crawl–in a good way.
    Of all the Gunga Din offerings, Mike Farrow does it in prose. Excellent.
    I’ll stop now.

  80. Skilled if oddball older and overlooked performances like that hold my interest mostly.

    DNW: Sounds like a fine vein to mine! I learn more from what people like than what they don’t. I’ll check out some of those names.

  81. Re: Guitar solos..

    Tom Grey: Here’s one from Bruce Springsteen in his prime. It’s not well-known, but Springsteen spent part of his musical apprenticeship chasing rock guitar godhood. However, he decided to focus on songwriting. Good thinking.

    The first two-and-a-half minutes still give me chills. A live performance which blows the studio version entirely away.

    –Bruce Springsteen, “Prove It All Night (Phoenix, 78)”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okrvOAUg-yY

    Well, I got this guitar and I learned how to make it talk.

  83. One more guitar solo … Prince playing at George Harrison’s posthumous induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (2004). I already knew Prince was a prodigy and a mean guitar player, but I had no idea he could do this. Made me a believer:

    “The Story Behind Prince’s Epic “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” Guitar Solo”
    https://wxrt.radio.com/prince-while-my-guitar-gently-weeps-rock-and-roll-hall-of-fame

    Cue it up at 3:30 to get to the meat. That’s an all-star group on stage, but Prince, wearing a red fedora, shows up from another galaxy.

    That showman bit where he turns his back on the audience and plays laying down at an angle, he’s playing for George Harrison’s son, Dhani, and Dhani beams a big smile back.

    Cute story at the link. Apparently Prince refused to rehearse, so no one was ready for him to burn it down that way.

    I still wonder who caught the guitar when he threw it away at the end.

  84. It’s that afternoon lull before neo posts… Here’s something for those who don’t mind more music blather–

    Watching Prince again, I noticed he included Pete Townshend’s signature windmill stroke and a hint of Hendrix playing with his teeth. I’ll bet if I knew more about electric guitar solos, I’d find homages to other greats.

    My favorite anecdote I read after Prince’s death was from Billy Gibbons, the lead guitarist for ZZ Top — you know, those white hillbilly-looking guys with the long, long beards. Gibbons and Prince happened to meet in a bar. Prince invited Gibbons to his table and they spent hours comparing notes on the guitar.

    https://societyofrock.com/billy-gibbons-shares-his-favorite-prince-memory-reveals-the-moment-that-left-him-mesmerized/

    I do believe Prince was staking a claim with his Hall of Fame performance to be part of the guitar god pantheon.

    And he is.

  85. Surfing on Billy Gibbons, I ran across one odd mashup of different talents — Billy Gibbons and Jeff Beck performing “Sixteen Tons” (by Merle Travis) with a video behind them of Tennessee Ernie Ford appearing to lip-sync to Gibbons’ vocals.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2aqvKY6zLc

    The YouTube frames the performance annoyingly in terms of woke 2012 politics, but the real story is stranger and funnier.

    Beck and ZZ Top had performed two songs together in 2009, then a fan had mashed the performances together in a video hoax as though they were singing “Sixteen Tons.”
    ____________________________________

    When ZZ Top lead guitarist Billy Gibbons learned of the video, he concluded that it was created by “someone who obviously had too much time on his hands.” Beck took it a step further and suggested, “Bloody hell — we can do this!” and worked up the same arrangement used in the fan’s YouTube video.

    Said Gibbons, as only he can, “It’s a mega meta kinda thang.”

    –https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/music/posts/la-et-ms-zz-top-jeff-beck-hoax-video-sixteen-tons-greek-theatre-20140819-story.html
    ____________________________________

    I remember hearing the song on the radio as a child, late at night while my father drove the car.

    If the right don’t get you, then the left one will.

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