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Dire Straits – Love Over Gold (1982)

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What does it sound like?:

By the time of their fourth album, Dire Straits had experienced that now rare luxury of having time to grow and develop. A fiery live act, centred around Mark Knopfler’s astonishingly fluid guitar playing (and an uncannily tight and sympathetic collective ability as a group – check out their Old Grey Whistle Test appearances), they sometimes had the tendency on their first three albums to tip over into blandness. (For me, those early albums all tend to blend into one AOR gloop). But there were signs of greatness to come, not least in Knopfler’s burgeoning songwriting ability (Romeo and Juliet from Making Movies being his first unqualified success, a light, dancing creation tempered by a combination of street suss and cynical playfulness worthy of Paul Simon).

Love Over Gold, then, was a change in sound (they ditched the producer and allowed Knopfler to produce on his own) and a leap forward in maturity. While there is an unshakeable whiff of eighties about the whole project (the dread digital gated reverb is in full effect, as well as a track listing in the style of a computer monitor), Love Over Gold’s roots actually lie in those twin rock tropes that dominated the two preceding decades – Floydian expansiveness and Dylanesque lyrical bite. In fact, let’s be direct – Love Over Gold is Wish You Were Here meets Highway 61 Revisited.

At only five tracks long, it’s brief and painless. (It follows the Wish You Were Here blueprint almost to a tee, with two long doom-laden tracks filling side one, and side two comprising a rocker, a ballad and more doom to close). You really need the vinyl (almost definitely available for £2.50 or thereabouts in your local charity shop) to add weight to Love Over Gold as an object – the CD by comparison seems hopelessly slight, its apocalyptic lightning bolt on the cover reduced to a little plastic spark.

The epic opening track, Telegraph Road, is the only one I can really live without. It’s lyrically and musically overblown.

Private Investigations is much better. Seedy, slinky and constantly holding back from exploding into something else, the song has Knopfler ruminating in a deadpan monologue (over a minor key, Spanish-tinged tune) about the twisted side of love (the metaphor of private eye as jealous lover is ingenious). The second, instrumental half of the song is the real juice, however, an immaculately arranged wash of synth and guitar licks over a throbbing, portentous single bass note. The will power to resist the temptation of a florid, wild guitar solo must have been immense, but Private Investigations is all the better for this restraint.

Industrial Disease kicks off side two with some welcome levity. The lyric is perhaps too arch by half, and apes Dylan’s long-form wild comedy poems too exactly (Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream, Tombstone Blues), but who can resist wonderful lines like “Two men say they’re Jesus – ONE of them must be wrong!”. The pop-funk guitar chops foreshadowing Money For Nothing a few years later, Industrial Disease is infectious fun.

The title track is next. It doesn’t particularly excite me, being little more than a resurgence of the blandness of the band’s past albums. But it’s sweet, perfectly arranged and a nice breather before the heaviness of the closing track.

It Never Rains is Mark Knopfler’s dark masterpiece. Starting light, it continues the same tinkly piano sound from the previous track, but a deeper intent soon becomes clear. The debt to Like A Rolling Stone is obvious (the narrator lectures a central, probably female, protagonist who has fallen on hard times, with the vague suggestion of turning to prostitution) but Dylan’s jubilant sense of redemption and rebirth (“When you’ve got nothing, you’ve got nothing to lose”) is mutated into stark hellishness in Knopfler’s bleaker world view (“He takes you out in Vaudeville Valley with his hand up smothering your screams, and he screws you down in Tin Pan Alley in the city of a billion dreams”).

The effect is startling. Undoubtedly it’s grist to the mill for pop psychoanalysts who’d like to draw a connection between pampered male rock stars and thinly veiled misogyny, but it’s also a thrill to experience such direct, uncompromising art.

And where Dylan could never hope to match Knopfler is in the kind of musicianship displayed in the instrumental coda. Over a spiraling, incessant riff, Knopfler finally stretches out with a fiery guitar solo, while the song (and the album as a whole) slowly fades into oblivion.

What does it all *mean*?

Love Over Gold is an immensely satisfying package. An elevation of polished rock to art status, and the coming of age of Knopfler as a singer, songwriter and mature musician. The eighties weren’t all that bad after all.

Goes well with…

… a glass of gin and a cigar.

Release Date:

Might suit people who like…

If you pine after those heady seventies days when LPs were LPs, cohesive 40 minute statements, then you might be surprised that Love Over Gold keeps that spirit alive. Or if you’ve tapped your toes to Walk Of Life or Sultans Of Swing, but still balk at the idea of listening to a faintly naff band, then Love Over Gold might pleasantly surprise you with its lack of naffness.

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Comments

  1. An interesting review, Mr Cowslip. I think we have very different tastes, you and I. I still listen frequently to the debut album, which I think is pretty flawless. To my ears Dire Straits got worse with each successive album. Love Over Gold was the last I bothered buying and the only track I might still listen to is Telegraph Road.
    When that first album came out I thought they sounded like an extraordinarily good pub band. That was their charm. By Love Over Gold they sound like a stadium band.

  2. Good album not played for many a long year – Telegraph Road and Private Investigations are the highlights for me, although prefer the Making Movies album overall.

  3. Wow! Extraordinary how differently folk read the same band. And hear. I confess I had forgotten the order of release, having always seen LoG as the 3rd album, beginning to break through the problem of a 2nd album being a flaccid copy of the formula of the first, itself encapsulated and only remembered as Sultans of Swing. A fabulously brilliant track surrounded by, well, who remembers? LoG was for me, like Bargey, side 1 and then, in truth, a better idea than a listen. Admirable, recommended but rarely played. MM was the one for me, and it was the change in band membership that did it, I feel perhaps, losing the risk of it being all buddies and brothers together for the more autocratic “my band” of Knopfler, M, to sneak in under our radars. BiA took that further and too far, but is, actually, a superb LP. I’d like to hear it without the production values that drench it to a rolled up suit sleeve death. Then I lost interest, at least in Dire Straits..

  4. I’ve recently been buying vinyl again for the first time in decades. Having reached the grand old age of X, I’m not really bothering with completism, just stuff I’d like to hear again with pops, crackles and scratches. And Love Over Gold kept staring at me from the cheapie section of my local vinly emporium. I eventually succumbed, my inner muso and bargain hunter defeating my inner rock snob (who knows perfectly well he’s only supposed to admit to liking the first album thank you very much!).

    It’s a hard album to definitively categorise. For every gorgeous musical moment, there’s some trite lyrics, studio trickery and Dylan-lite delivery to contend with. Telegraph Road and Private Investigation seem to want to be so meaningful and portentous, but the subject matter and lyrical banality just don’t deliver. Yet the muso in me has always loved “that” moment in PI combining Spanish guitar with 2 note bar chord thrash.

    You’re right Arthur in that the vinly comes alive in a way that the CD just don’t. But the glibness comes alive as much as the musicianship. Not a candidate for unqualified love then, but also hard to completely dismiss musically.

  5. Great review. I lost interest in the Dires after the 3rd album, concluding that the first one would never be bettered, even though later singles were fun and MK’s guitar playing is always a delight. You’ve piqued my interest now though – having “done the chazzas” (to quote @minibreakfast) recently I’m sure there isn’t a copy in town but i shall be on the lookout.

    • No progression from first album? Songs even less distinctive?
      Lady Writer not as good as Sultans of Swing?
      Best song done much better on Alchemy?
      Double Platinum in France?

        • Love, love, Love Communique. My favourite of their records. Recorded in the Bahama’s and sounded like it, its wonderful. News, Angle of Mercy, Single Handed Sailor/Follow Me Home, very chilled overall and no bad thing.

          Top 3 for me is Communique, Love Over Gold and the debut. Never really loved Making Movies, a bit too cold, a bit to Springsteen (Roy Bittan on the keyboards,) just doesn’t warrant a place in my heart.

          Love Over Gold is great, very 80s. Whats not to like about Telegraph Road. Industrial Disease sounds a bit too Walk of Life for me, but the last 2 tracks great also.

          Not much of a coherent review from me for any of the albums, fell in love with these records as a teenager in the mid 80’s, even joined the DS Fan club and stupidly didnt get tickets to see them with Clapton but still listen to them occasionally.

          Knopfler was being interviewed by Johnnie Walker on radio 2 yesterday, just downloaded that radio show for the ipod. Never owned one of his solo records, maybe i should investigate further.

          • Ditto. Communique is the only one i still listen to as a whole. Although my main problem with Making Movies was playing it to death while i was at college, over-exposure rather than active dislike.

          • They are not as the DS albums are, by and large.

            Philadelphia is a much more laid back album, and each track has a definite narrative – Mason Dixon, for example, or marriage in the prairies in late C19 USA…

            I got all of the solo records, and as a body enjoy them more than the DS oeuvre. That’s not to say that I dislike DS – far from it. But the solo stuff has more plays on iTunes.

            If you’re wanting entry points to the solo, I’d start with Philadelphia, or the Emmy Lou collaboration Road Running.

    • – I quite like the version of “Once Upon a Time in the West” that opens “Alchemy”.

      – The sleeve design of “Communiqué” is cack.

      – I quite like the early version of “Eastbound Train”, which was on the Various Artists double live LP recorded at the Hope & Anchor.

  7. For me this is Making Movies again. A couple of very strong tracks (Telegraph Road, Private Investigations vs Tunnel Of Love and Romeo And Juliet) bulked up by filler (most of the rest), and one howlingly bad song which ranks among the very worst music ever recorded (Industrial Disease and Les Boys).

  8. I am convinced that this is their best album – you can almost hear them hitting the end point and teetering into overblown stadium/coffee table-ness.
    The Makin Movies vs Love Over Gold “argument” (“which is better?”) is a bit like the Betamx vs VHS argument – they are both better in their own ways, but there has to be one winner so LoG gets the vote.
    Aside from the live Alchemy, which put the gloss on the achievement, it was downhill from here (possibly starting with the execrable “Twisting By The Pool”.
    Brothers In Arms is not really a bad album, just an over-produced, over-baked, overly detached slab of coffee table warmer

    • And Brothers in Arms seemed to be inescapable when it was released, especially Money For Nothing (that “groundbreaking” video hasn’t aged well). I haven’t heard it for years but being an early digital recording, I wonder how well the overall sound has stood up.
      Incidentally, I listened to LOG and MM a lot in the 80s and would have said MM was better but Industrial Disease and Les Boys……I may have to dig out the vinyl to reacquaint my self with the other tracks.

  9. Here’s a playlist of crimes to be taken into account:

    1. Twisting by the Pool
    2. Les Boys
    3. Wa*k of Life
    4. Industrial Disease
    5. Southbound Again

    7. Heavy Fuel
    8. Angel of Mercy
    9. Money for Nothing
    10. My Parties
    11. Planet of New Orleans

    Bonus CD track: Ticket to Heaven

  10. What a superbly written review, Arthur! I doff my cap to you.

    I’ve never enjoyed Dire Straits’ music with just one exception, Private Investigations. I bought the single, much later. Was it in a movie? The B side was dreadful.

  11. A great review Arthur but I couldn’t disagree with your more. Telegraph road is far and away the best track on the album and Industrial Disease is unadulterated cack. First two albums great, Making Movies also great but have a lot of affection for On every Street and especially Calling Elvis.
    For Knopfler at his best you really need to check out his solo catalogue – peerless stuff.

  12. It’s a surprise they never went down the expanded reissue route for some of their albums as there must be unreleased material laying around – wasn’t Love Over Gold originally intended to be a double album for example?

  13. Then they can be fantastic. I remember seeing this on The Tube shortly after coming back from 6 months backpacking and spending time on a kibbutz in Israel and it seemed to hit the nail squarely on the head. OK I’m choosing to see the headband as a bit of period folly.

  14. H’mmm. I quite liked Dire Straits back in the day, but they are best heard on a Greatest Hits compilation, as most of their albums had one or two killer tracks and a load of filler. I haven’t really listened to them for years; they sound incredibly dated in every way, and so much of their material verges on shite (as per @Bartleby‘s list). They only made one track that I still really like (see below, with possibly the worst video ever made), but Mark Knopfler as a solo artist is a completely different proposition. Can’t see a Dire Straits reappraisal / rehabilitation happening any time soon though.

  15. I like almost all of the first album and Making Movies. Aside from the usual suspects, Down to the Waterline and Solid Rock are both old favourites. This thread has made me want to dust down the vinyl and give it a spin.

  16. Water of Love is superb, always loved that. Could quite happily live without hearing Sultans of Swing again. Always annoying when the likes of gold radio or pick of the pops reach 1979 and play the album version rather than the superior and rawer single release.

    I havent heard Brothers in Arms in full in 30 years. The non-single album tracks were always pretty decent, might need to dust off the cd at some point, sorry, the vinyl, as the cd has all those extended intros and outros included. Something not to be encouraged, different versions of albums for different formats.

    Vinyl is always best for the Straits.

  17. Were they really a “fiery” live act? Seem pretty laid back from what I’ve seen. My brother’s band once supported him when he was in Notting Hillbilly phase, said it was OK.

    Love P.I., don’t mind Money for Nothing a superior 80s hit,

      • This is a fantastic guitar documentary, featuring lots of Jerry Donahue whose playing is sadly lost to us now. See 13.38 – his contribution to a Hush Puppys ad – I didn’t know it was him till I saw the doc, though with the benefit of hindsight it couldn’t have been anyone else…

        https://youtu.be/k-pR0t-1sf0

        • Thanks Twang, I’ll watch that later. But speaking of Jerry Donahue, there’s a fascinating piece in the latest Guitarist magazine about Clapton’s 1964 Gibson 335, the one he used with Cream and was later sold at auction for almost a million dollars.

          Seems it wasn’t the same guitar he used with the Yardbirds as previously thought, but another one entirely. The Yardbirds guitar was accidentally destroyed it seems.

          Jerry Donahue worked at Selmer’s guitar shop in Charing Cross Road in the late 60s and claimed to have sold the “other” 335 to Eric just a few weeks before the Cream farewell concert.

          • Interesting. JD and Eric disagree on that one. Just finished rewatching – brilliant footage of It Bites in the Manor recording “All around the world”. prognostic! Also great snippets of an early BBC documentary about beat groups – “amazingly the instrument is precision tuned – anyone would think it is a real instrument!”. One to put on DVD I think. I have a VHS of it somewhere…

  18. Like everyone else, it seems, I haven’t listened to this, or, other than the occasional track on the radio, any Dire Straits for ages.

    I remember the first couple of records being ubiquitous at Uni. I heard Sultans of Swing and other tracks from the debut record on John Peel’s show – he played it lots as I recall. Along with the first album, Love Over Gold was, for me, the best of their records.

    Like Arthur I always felt It Never Rains was the best thing here, and having listened again, I still do. The Dylan influence is indeed huge but what strikes me now is how Springsteen-like it is as well.

    But, after this, and after seeing them at Wembley Arena, I never really felt inclined to check out their later records. I don’t know why – I thought they were OK, but I guess they were just never a band I felt passionate about.

    For all that I am surprised at the loathing for them here, which seems to be of U2 proportions. Why is this? There are surely far worse targets for opprobrium than Dire Straits, whose music may not be revolutionary but features well written and produced songs, intelligent lyrics, distinctive and interesting guitar. Maybe they just got too successful and popular.

    I heard the Johnny Walker interview the other day too, and Knopfler always strikes me as one of the good guys when I hear him speak. Modest, thoughtful, and clearly passionate and knowledgable about music. And if you judge him by what his peers think of him he’s clearly got something given the roster of artists who have queued up to work with him.

    Thanks @Arthur-Cowslip for the post – I’ll go back and check out some of the rest of his catalogue again.

    • And those who tour with him too.

      We saw him at the Warner Theater in DC, and I spent a lot of the show going “isn’t that…. nah, can’t be.”

      It was in fact John McCusker

  19. Good to see so many passionate views about this band – I had no idea they were so divisive.

    For the record, I love the Brothers In Arms album. Well, at least 50% of it. Walk Of Life is harmless fun, the title track is very moving, Don’t Worry is a great ballad and The Man’s Too Strong is just wonderful (with some incredible guitar pickin’).

  20. I think 2017 may be the year I finally put my ancient bigotry to one side and actually properly listen to the Dire Straits.

    My dad asked for one of Knopfler’s solo albums for Christmas in the 1990s… I made my mum get it for me because I didn’t want to be seen buying it.

    One of the wonderful things about getting older is gradually shedding all these ridiculous prejudices. And acquiring new, better ones.

    • Good point well made.
      These late-seventies boys and girls really need to de-punk. Just like us sixties and early seventies teens eventually had to recognise that not all of our parents music was shite. And that they were right to deride some of our music.

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