Brothersin Arms
Side Story of Brothers inArms
Brothers in Arms, the fifth album of DireStraits, well known for a few great hits like Money for Nothing, Brothers inArms, etc., was one of the bestselling of all time, followed by over 30 millioncopies sold worldwide and 248 concerts in 118 cities in 23 countries in a yearand a day.
As always the way goes, Mark Knopfler, theband frontman, had written all nine of the songs, early summer of 1984, theband started informally, meeting in Mark's house in west London. Tentatively atfirst, we worked our way through them, getting the feel for the new material.And then the band went to George Martin's AIR Studio in the Caribbean on thetiny British Overseas Territory of Montserrat. Some great names have recordedthere, including the Stones, the Police, Phil Collins, and Elton John. Thereason to record there is simple: no distraction. Montserrat, like Nassau, istiny. There's literally nothing to do, there's no great cultural or socialscene in which to get lost. The idea was to work, and that's what the band did,very hard, for a few months. Sure, they would unwind with some beers and rum,maybe a few extras, but that didn't happen until very late in the evening, bywhich time the band were all exhausted.
Brothers in Arms was one of the firstalbums to be recorded digitally, on two Sony twenty-four-track digital tapemachines, so the requirement for absolute accuracy was way greater than it hadbeen in the past. It was also one of the first albums ever published in CDformat, as well as on, vinyl and cassette. Precision was the watchword.
“Brothers in Arms”, inspired by FalklandWar (or Islas Malvinas in Argentina ), was a slow, powerful,mournful song about the futility of war, The song’s lyrics speak to the bond betweensoldiers, bound not just by shared battle but by the overarching burden ofhaving witnessed war’s devastation and how that can affect the human condition.While many fans have linked "Brothers in Arms" directly to theFalklands War, Mark Knopfler himself has stated that the song is not tied toany specific conflict. Instead, it draws from a timeless sense of the humancondition, where brotherhood, pain, and loss are intertwined in the chaos ofwar. These two are often combined, the friendships made in those moments last alifetime but so does the pain.
As for the most ever successful single hit,Money for Nothing，apart from the song and Mark’s guitarplaying, Sting has always been an interesting topic associated with the song: Oneafternoon when the band was recording "Money for Nothing." The"I want my MTV" line at the end was inspired by Mark seeing thePolice talking on an ad for MTV and simply saying, "I want my MTV."In the studio, Mark happened to remark, "I wish Sting was here to singthis part." And someone said, "Well, he is. He's here on holiday!"The Police had recorded on Montserrat for a couple of years and it turned outSting loved to come to the island to windsurf. He'd been spotted out jogging,pounding the dirt lanes in the mornings. So a phone call later-Sting came andjoined us for supper one evening. We played some of the tracks from the albumand he loved "Money for Nothing," so Mark popped the question:"Why not come and sing on it?" So the next morning, warming up, Stingstarted singing, "I want my MTV," over and over. And that was it.
Every time when I listen to this album, aBBC review (by Chris Jones) https://www.bbc.co.uk/music/reviews/86rg/, with its unique style and British puns, would come to my mind:
29-Million copiessold. Third best-selling album of all time in the UK. First album to succeed inthe CD market, Grammy winning, earner of enough Platinum to build a house:Brothers In Arms is a phenomenon on every level. Its production raised the barfor all music to come, its songs and videos became household items. It alsoalmost destroyed the band.
By 1984, incessanttouring and recording schedules had not dimmed Mark Knopfler’s enthusiasm forperfection. Having taken over the production duties on previous album Love OverGold, he now went even further towards a kind of pop-oriented Americana.Brothers…has a fine arrayof chart moments, including, of course, the Sting-assisted video hit “Money for Nothing”, the moody “So far Away” and faux bop “Walk Of Life”. But it gets them out of theway in the manner of mere aperitifs and then massages you with a suite ofKnopfler’s very fine brand of JJ Cale-lite. Along with gruff nods to Dylan andJames Burton. Like contemporaries U2 they had the golden touch that made theirgold instantly more American and mythical than most acts from the States.
They toured thisalbum for two years. After that amount of time surely any band would falter.They certainly had a very long hiatus. This album was bigger than them. On thatfinal night of the tour in they must have never wanted to hear a note of thisalbum again. Twenty years on, it’s still echoing around the world. Asinescapable as ever.
Note：Parts of thisarticle are excerpted from the latest published《My Lifein Dire Straits》by John Illsley.
