Okay, having left this alone for a few weeks now (life got in the way a little bit, and I haven’t had time to sit down, stick on a CD and babble on about whatever pops into my head for 3 or 4 weeks now) I am back in the groove again. Also, while I was in danger of running out of the original batch of CDs, I’ve now booked a trip down to visit my Mum and pick up the full collection. Plan is still to finish off the handpicked selections first, but from there I am determined to adopt a totally lucky-dip approach. See what gets pulled out from the box (or off the shelves, if we ever get adequate CD storage sorted) at random and go with that.
So that leads on to the selection this time around, and the chance for a little bit of music geekery from me. The CD is “Brothers in Arms” by Dire Straits and I happen to know that this CD is both the first CD (note, not LP, cassette or whatever else) to sell 1 million copies across the globe, but it was also (I think) one of the very very first CDs that my Dad bought for his collection. And the very copy that I’m listening to now is that copy that he bought way back when.
The reason I am fairly confident that it was one of the very first harks back to one of my earliest memories (not involving allegedly being pushed into a swimming pool by my sister anyway…) from my formative years. I can clearly remember at some point in 1986 or 1987 my Dad coming home (I think from the local electrical retailer of the day, rather than from any far-flung foreign lands) with a selection of square clear plastic cases that opened on a hinge with little booklets held within one side, and shiny metal discs in the other half. The way that the light formed a little spectrum of colours as you moved the disc around in the air fascinated me so as soon as he left the room (went upstairs I believe) I was over to the CD rack like a shot. I picked one of the cd cases out, being enticed in by the sky blue colour of the booklet and tried to copy the action I had seen my Dad undertake in opening the case up. However, I’d obviously not paid quite enough attention to what he had done, or didn’t possess the hand-span needed to manipulate things in the right way and as such struggled to open the case itself up. At that moment, my Dad came down the stairs and obviously clocked what I was trying to do and sufficiently admonished me for trying to get at his new CD collection, so that was then the end of that little experiment. Does seem ridiculous now that I struggled to open the CD case at all, but given how fussy about avoiding scratches on his CDs my Dad was, I can sort of understand him wanting to keep my clumsy hands off them for as long as possible. And it’s a testament to his attention to detail and scratch-avoidance techniques that a CD that he probably bought 32-years ago still plays without skipping now actually.
It’s also interesting that while I had in mind exactly what tracks were on this album, and exactly how they sound - that I don’t actually think I recognise all of them by title, and that I’ve become used to hearing ‘radio edits’ of some songs rather than the full album versions. Money for Nothing from this album sounds (and is) very different from the radio-friendly version that they break out on Radio 2 every now and again. And the difference in tracks must, I assume, come down to there having been different tracks put on to tapes for car journeys and things that have become those that I associate with Dire Straits rather than the 9 tracks that make up the album itself. You do still have some that are familiar to me on there of course, but that variation found between the album track and the single versions isn’t something that I’d ever really appreciated before or paid much heed too. It’s also probably very much a dying art in the modern era of downloads, Spotify and so on where people can hear whichever version of whichever track they want instantaneously and without having to give it any real thought. Wow, how much of an old git do I sound there??
As for the CD itself, my lovely wife has offered her review of it and has proclaimed it to be ‘very gentle’ and ‘a good soundtrack’. Given some of her other views on some of the other stuff I’ve inflicted on her so far, I think I’ll take that and do agree with her. There is a real range of musical styles on there, from up-tempo more rock-y tracks to some very soothing and gentle songs, all with Mark Knopfler’s slightly gravelly voice running through them and adding a certain intangible element to the music. Also through listening through the CD I think I’ve stumbled across a real hidden gem. If you’ve never heard “The Man’s too Strong” before, I would highly recommend going out of your way to look it out. Just a really powerful, yet beautiful, piece of music to listen to. And of course, if you’re not aware of the title track of the album then that’s another one to definitely seek out and have a good listen to. I’m not usually one for trying to pick our a definite ‘story’ within a piece of music, but for me Dire Straits’ music does almost have that story-telling quality to it and that’s something else to definitely appreciate. So on that now I think I will wrap this one up, and hope that you’re all still enjoying reading these as much as I’m enjoying putting them together for you.
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