Album Review: Brothers in Arms by Dire Straits

Photo from Amazon

Words by: Anna Julia

Technical Details:

Year: 1985

Genre: Rock

Length: 55:07 minutes

Country: England

Being the eighth-best-selling album in the UK’s chart history, many people will agree with me if I say Brothers In Arms is probably one of the greatest triumphs in Dire Straits’ files. Sure, my father may say their first album is better, but I haven’t heard it as well as I should to judge if it really is. By now, my favorite work by the band (the band in itself, even though I cannot avoid featuring the wonderful music of Mark Knopfler alone, when he quit Dire Straits) is this album, which includes many of their greatest hits.

What I would feature of Brothers In Arms, and a special characteristic trait of the songs that conform it, is the incredible surround sound and background effects behind the main melodies. As I said a few months ago in my first review in this site, which was Florence + the Machine’s first album, with that album happened the same as now: Every time I listen to one of the songs, I can pay attention to a different aspect of it, and I can discover another layer of sound I didn’t know was there, another choir voice in a different musical key, a distinct new beat or a hidden synthesizer. I have to admit that, the first time I heard the whole album, many of the songs seemed to me really alike in terms of melody and voice, but now I can nearly say the name of the song with only hearing its first lyrics. Some of the songs perfectly reflect the rock that defines the band, such as Money for Nothing (co-written with Sting), or Why Worry, which I could virtually define as a soft rock ballad (its sound is similar to R.E.M.’s, but with more depth), in which he talks to us with a caressing touch while telling us everything’s gonna be okay. But Mark Knopfler leaves space to experiment, and so we can see in songs such as Ride Across the River, whose last instrumental minutes are kinda an jazz-y electronic experimental theme with guitar inputs here and there, an unfrequent idea that works perfectly here.

If these wonderful sounds, music and versatility weren’t enough, Mark Knopfler combines them with really great lyrics. Like, seriously. He’s an incredible writer and poet, his range of topics and ideas is wide, and his way of thinking, writing, talking and singing about them is brilliantly neat. Depending on the idea he wants to communicate, and the overall feeling he wants the listener to perceive, he is more direct, more metaphorical, or changes the person of the writing to fit that feeling -so, in some songs, especially in the ballads, it’s like he’s talking to you, making it all intimate, quiet, comfortable… and in those more distended, in both the lyrics and/or the music, he talks (in general) in third person so we see all the things in the song as just a story, alien to us.

Also about the lyrics, I have to focus in Knopfler’s way of dealing with the political topics: war or political chaos are some of the concepts he uses more in his lyrics, and has a personal style of showing them to us with a poetry and subtlety that I had never seen ‘til now. This album is especially rich in such songs, because the four last ones, including the one that gives the album its title, are about battling and address related issues. He has a sad but kinda-peaceful awareness of what’s war and all its destructive, dreadful horrors, and speaks to us from the position of the soldier, of the one that, desperate, sees how the world, how his brothers in arms, fall around him, but still fights not for the honor of his country -or himself-, but, instead, for the beauty of living and the beauty in the world, all those incredible things that are worth fighting for. And I think that’s really, really beautiful and poetic.

In summary, the whole Brothers in Arms album is a stand-out album in itself, that showcases most of Dire Straits’ skills and variety when it comes to music, but also lets Mark Knopfler’s poetry reach a topmost peak.  But I don’t need to convince you more than is necessary, as this album has earned lots of awards, including two Grammy awards. And Dire Straits is Dire Straits, after all.

Tracklist and featured songs

So Far Away, 5:12

Money For Nothing, 8:26

Walk Of Life, 4:12

Your Latest Trick, 6:33

Why Worry, 8:31

Ride Across The River, 6:58

The Man’s Too Strong, 4:40

One World, 3:40

Brothers In Arms, 7:00

Money For Nothing, 8:26

One of the greatest songs in the whole album, Money For Nothing is the perfect killer 80s charts-beating single. The guitar riff that opens the song, after the ambience sound and the repeated “I want my MTV”s, amazes me everytime I hear it, and makes me want to be a guitarist. I also love the backing voices in this song; the different harmonies are really great, and it’s hard to find a song as greatly composed as Money For Nothing.

Walk Of Life, 4:12

I don’t know how did I discover Dire Straits, but what I surely know is that Walk Of Life was, until then, that typical song you always hear on the radio but can’t recognise; the one you never know the name because Shazam is not available, and you only remember it because it is “the radio song” (Losing My Religion by R.E.M., aka the official radio song, is that you that I hear?). But sometimes you hear those songs in a Spotify playlist or so, and your life is solved. Okay, after that brief moment of fangirling and stupidity, let me say that Walk of Life is one of the songs I would be happy to include in the OST of my life, for my best moments of joy and fun. I’ve seen this mini-feature of the song is being a bit random (just like the song, actually), but until I skip to the next song, let me say its official video is incredibly funny, give it a view!

Brothers In Arms, 7:00

One of my favorite songs since the beginning of 2015, and of the saddest ones I’ve heard in all my life (no kidding!), Brothers In Arms has been a soft companion in my roughest times. It doesn’t even talk with the sadness I feel when I’m sad, but I relate to it anyway. Mixing despair with calm in a perfect equation, this song helps me drown in a weirdly comfortable sadness, making me feel I’m in a movie scene, just before the third act in which everything solves and everything is okay. This song is wonderful and I cannot stop listening to it.