Mark Knopfler turns 73 today. A look back at his 2018 interview with Rolling Stone.
As for Privateering six years ago, Mark Knopfler was generous on the occasion of Down the Road Wherever : 25 tracks at the time and 20 here, if we count the bonus tracks planned for an expanded edition of this new album. “Too many songs, I’m sorry”, laughs the person concerned, who puts this profusion on the account of age: “The older I get, the more productive I am. Maybe because I don’t have to run around anymore…”
Age, time, the distance between past and present are all notions that transpire from these new songs, the stories he tells, the multiple characters he portrays. As if, as he approaches his 70th birthday, which he will celebrate in August 2019, disconnecting from the present moment and taking a step back were necessary for the former leader of Dire Straits.
“This is by no means nostalgia, he specifies. But this notion of time, of perspective, is more and more interesting as you get older. You constantly look at and approach things through another prism. It is also a way of explaining or reminding that, if times change, people do not change, often do not learn much from the past. This kind of observation necessarily nourishes a songwriter who looks into this kind of subject. I know that I would have to wait and integrate this notion of stepping back from the present if the idea came to me to write regarding Brexit, for example. I need this offset. A song like ‘One Song at a Time’, which appears on this new album, has this dimension where several eras collide over the stanzas. It’s not necessarily new in my writing, but it’s something I’m tending towards more and more.”
The title “One Song at a Time”, it is to Chet Atkins that Knopfler owes it, thanks to a sentence that the great figure of country music had thrown at him: “I came out of poverty one song following another.” It is therefore also, for the guitarist, a way of paying a strong tribute to someone who, by his own admission, marked him a lot.
Unsurprisingly, the Knopfler touch is omnipresent, and immediately identifiable, on this new album. The person concerned, however, considers that his guitar playing has changed over time, that he felt himself. “It kind of got distilled, he specifies. I focused so much on writing the songs that I kind of neglected it as such. Besides, if the next tour is the last, as planned, I may take guitar lessons from an accomplished teacher. I know my game has never been orthodox. I consider that I play like a plumber! Make no mistake, I like the way I play. It’s just that it doesn’t necessarily satisfy me as a musician. When I say that I feel less a musician than a songwriter, it’s not for nothing!”
“Last tour”? Yes, you read that right. Like others (Eric, if you can hear us…), Mark Knopfler gives up. Age is advancing, his back is hurting him… No need to draw you a picture. So, the gentleman is OK for a few concerts here and there, but that’s the end of the big barnums that stretch over long months.
Xavier Bonnet
