Mark Knopfler, The Excellent Historian
Alex Tabbarok recently wrote a post about privateering, and ended it with this recommendation:
More to the point (or at any rate, the point that this post is trying to make), he also called Mark Knopfler an excellent historian.
This post is me heartily seconding Alex’s call, and providing a series of arguments for why Alex and I are (obviously) right. I’m hoping you haven’t heard these songs before, and if that is the case, you’re in for a royal treat.
Most people know Mark Knopfler as the lead singer of Dire Straits (and there’s economics there too, surprise surprise), but there is so much more to his career than that.
In this post, I am going to talk about ten of his songs, and how those songs cover diverse parts of history.
“We’ve paid in hell since Moscow burned,
As Cossacks tear us piece by piece,
Our dead are strewn a hundred leagues,
Though death would be a sweet release”
…is how the song starts, and goes on to tell us about the hell that must have been “The Little Corporal’s” army’s retreat from Moscow.
Knopfler’s songs are often about the ‘little’ men in history, as opposed to The Great Man narrative, and this song is no different. Our protagonist tells us in a few short verses about how the dream of ‘Spanish skies and Egyptian sands’ turned sour very quickly. He speaks about the battles of Austerlitz, and about having lost an eye there. He wants nothing more than a sweet return to his belle France, and his yearning for a return back in both space and time lends this song an ache that never quite goes away.
Well, ok, he does want one more thing. He prays the future generations will never again see a little corporal point towards foreign shores and captivate the hearts of men.
Ah well. God must not have been in a listening mood that day.“She’s going shopping, shopping for shoes”, Knopfler informs us, and helps us learn about Imelda’s insanity. Imelda Marcos, wife of Ferdinand Marcos, patron saint of obscenely large shoe collections (over 3000 pairs, WTF!), and the subject of this song, was quite the character. You’d have to be to have an entire Wikipedia article about your proclivities!
It’s a lovely song as it is, but if you are a student of economics and history, it is a good way to get an “in” into the turbulent history of the Philippines in the second half of the twentieth century. But regardless of whether or not you choose to take the plunge into the history of the Philippines (and you should!), you should certainly listen to this song.One of my favorite songs by Knopfler (in part because my daughter loves it), this song is about the Mason Dixon line in America, by itself a fascinating piece of American history (and geography). But if you happen to also land upon the book by Thomas Pynchon about these two (Mason and Dixon), then you have a treasure trove of historical adventures to savor.
And from a musical perspective, Knopfler and James Taylor at the same time. What more you want in life, eh?Have you heard about the concept of a mail-order bride? This song is about that practice, and having listened to the song, I hope you’re inspired to both read the article, and also to do a bit of online digging-about to learn more about how and why the practice started. The song is a treat in and of itself, but I hope it also inspires you to find out a little bit more about a most unexpected subject (and hey, if you’ve ever found yourself wondering why students of economics should learn about sociology, here’s an answer!)
What does it mean to “have the back of Maggie’s hand”? If you want to understand the original DOGE better, this is a good song to get you started. What was the Britain of the 1980’s like? What did Margaret Thatcher do, and what were the costs and benefits of whatever it was that she did? Whatever your opinion of her economics, Knopfler continues his theme of exploring what ordinary people go through during historic times in this song. “German building, British made” is as good a phrase as any to help you get started on labor mobility.
Watching ‘The Founder’ is one way to understand Ray Kroc and how the Golden Arches became what they are today (and not just the business, but also how they helped shape America). Another way is by listening to a song that talks about how Kroc discovered a little place flippin’ meat (down in San Bernadino, ring-a-ding-ding), and ruthlessly turned it into what it is today. I cannot stand a McDonald’s burger (for reasons of taste, not because of the backstory!), but this song? Play it on loop, no problem.
Listen to the song, please, before reading further. Now listen to it once again, but with the knowledge that this is George Bush Sr. telling Jr. how to go about the business of running the show (which just so happens to be the most powerful nation on earth, which was definitively true at the time)… and how to not crash the ‘ambulance’ while you’re driving it. We could do with a sequel, Mark, we really could.
If you saw and liked The Green Book (I did, and I did), then this song is another way to get acquainted with the same era, in the same part of the world. The movie, being a movie, chose to show the protagonists choosing to stand up and fight, in a manner of speaking. But here’s to the untold many who just chose to pay the man and go. Because hey, baloney again.
Dire Straits fans might recall a song called ‘Telegraph Road’. I think of this song as a spiritual successor to that one, not in terms of the way it is sung or orchestrated, but in terms of what both sets of lyrics are about. That connection may not work for everybody, but economic hardships, urbanization, and the quiet struggle of the folks who struggle to make it through epochs in history - these are classic Knopfler themes, and an older, quieter Knopfler is still singing about ‘em in this one. Read more about Knoxville, Natchez Trace and urbanization in that part of the world (and if you like to pick up on obscure parts of different lyrics of different songs, see if you can make the connection to ‘Sweet Home Alabama’, by Lynyrd Skynyrd.)
I’m not much into boxing, but I enjoyed learning about a world I know next to nothing about by listening to this song. And the more I learn about Sonny Liston, his background, and about that time in general, the more conflicted I am about both the man, and what he became. And here’s another (non-Knopfler) song for you to listen to, if you want some connecting trivia.
As you might have been able to tell, Knopfler is one of my favorite song-writers. He will not have the same abilities that say, a Dylan does (then again, that’s unlikely to ever happen again), and he’s never going to make anybody’s top ten list when it comes to singing (not even mine, and I’m a Knopfler acolyte). But when it comes to knowing a thing or two about playing the guitar, and when it comes to picking weird ol’ themes to tell a story about, Knopfler is second to none in my book. And as this post hopefully makes clear, he’s a great way to get an ‘in’ into many different histories.
Happy listening!
(Pro Tip: You could put this entire blogpost into ChatGPT, and ask it to make a playlist using Spotify. Try it!)
Knopfler is a genius. Alchemy is still, with the exception of Pink Floyd (perhaps), the best live album ever, in my opinion.