Chords for Mark Knopfler interview
Tempo:
72.575 bpm
Chords used:
Eb
D
Abm
Tuning:Standard Tuning (EADGBE)Capo:+0fret
Start Jamming...
According to Rolling Stone magazine, Mark Knopfler is ranked as one of the greatest guitarists of all time,
as if we needed them to tell us that.
He's best known for his group Dire Straits, who became the biggest band in Britain since Pink Floyd,
and maybe in the world, and had one of the biggest selling albums of all time with Brothers in Arms.
But what many people don't know is that Mark is the only rock star to have a species of dinosaur named after him.
Strange, but true.
And that during those heady, hedonistic gigs in the 80s, his stimulant of choice on stage and off was a nice cup of tea.
Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Mark [Eb] Knopfler.
[D]
[N]
Mark, [Abm] I've mentioned your tea, and you do make a very sort of unlikely rock star, if we go by the literal definition of that.
Yet, in the 80s, you did find yourself at the helm of this sort of supersonic group,
this enormous edifice that was seen to epitomize everything about the kind of Gordon Gekko era,
in much the same way as Martin's book Money.
It must have been extremely strange for someone like yourself, who's not an attention seeker,
and I wondered at what point you realized that in order to reclaim your life, you had to walk away from it.
The scaling down, I think, was required, yeah.
Everything was too big.
I remember actually walking into catering at the back of one of these big gigs, and it got to a pretty big scale.
And there were some truck drivers in there who I didn't recognize, because they were leapfrogging stages to different places.
And when I saw these truck drivers that I didn't recognize, it was certainly a turning point.
I thought that it had got too big.
But I had lots of other times when I'd thought exactly the same thing.
Was there anything at all about being this kind of giant?
I've noticed there's a few gentlemen in the audience today, I don't know if you've seen them yourself,
that are wearing red T-shirts with a kind of iconic image of you, and they've got, they may even be glow-in-the-dark headbands,
I'm a bit worried about them.
They have my sympathy.
I mean, you ditched that outfit quite a long time ago.
I have.
Is there any reason why any self-respecting young man should still be wearing it?
None that I can think of.
But I do, the reason why I adopted that, in fact, was that I used to sweat with the old-fashioned lights.
The old lights are very heavy and very, very hot.
And I was spraying sweat all over the place when I was playing, and I couldn't see my cords through my tears.
Darling.
So that's really why I did that.
And when they brought in these modern lights, I didn't need to have a headband anymore, so I stopped wearing that.
Well, it's a miracle, with that kind of handicap, the spraying sweat handicap,
[N] that you managed to make it into this list of the world's greatest guitarists ever.
Number 27, I think it was.
Well, I think I would be a guitar teacher's worst nightmare if I do everything wrong on the guitar.
How do you mean?
Well, if this was a guitar neck, for instance, the correct way would be to play with your thumb in the back of the neck
and your wrist round here and adopt these impossible positions.
And I hold it like a plumber holds a hammer, you know.
Well, you certainly make it sing, nevertheless.
Your skills as a songwriter seem only to increase.
I know that no lesser figure than Bob Dylan was particularly taken with your lyrics.
I think on
Was it on Private Investigations when he
He liked the way you rhymed diary with inquiry.
Oh, yes, he did, yes.
I remember Bob saying that.
Yes, bless him.
No, it was a thrill for me, obviously, to be sought out by Bob.
And he came along to a thing we did.
We did our first club tour of the States.
This is what you do.
You do pubs and clubs and then you
You do cities.
And, yes, and that just led to working on some records and lots of names, but
I wanted to talk to you about your relationship with your lyrics, because you're sort of brimful of literary connections.
Your wife Kitty's just written her second novel, Crier's Hill.
Great tune.
It's great, absolutely.
It is great.
Well, you'd have to say that as well.
I know you think it, and I agree.
Well, I wouldn't just say that because I am quite serious about books, yeah.
Well, that's where I was going to take this, because you also studied English.
And I wondered how much literature had an effect on you as a songwriter.
I mean, there are songs, actually, of yours that have been inspired by books you've read.
Well, that's right.
I mean, I could be inspired by a bus timetable.
That doesn't say much for Thomas Pynchon.
No, but it can come from anywhere.
It can come from something somebody says.
It can come from a situation in which you find yourself.
And it can come from a picture or a scrapped newspaper.
But it can come from books and has come from books.
So two or three come immediately to mind.
And, yes, I mean, there was
What would they be?
Well, there was one recent one, for instance, where I was writing a song about a tattoo artist.
I've always been fascinated by that.
Since a child, you know, I was a victim of the fairground
and always been interested in the carnival and that side of things.
And I was reading this book by Sarah Hall called The Electric Michelangelo.
That's one of the last ones that
I think she's got a new one coming out quite soon.
And I was writing a song about a tattoo artist, and my song was called
is called
Ah, True Love Will Never Fade.
And I like that.
I like that.
But the book
What I mean is that what happens, a book that you're writing, you're reading,
can just conjoin with what you're doing and help in a major way.
The Thomas Pynchon one was Mason and Dixon.
I was
One of my travelling companions for a while.
It was a long book.
And I was flying into Philadelphia over the modern conurbation,
looking at these enormous ships.
And, again, that tied up with this Geordie chap
and the fellow from Gloucestershire.
And they're just two English guys hacking this enormous swathe through America.
The Mason-Dixon line, which you sing about.
Yeah, and sometimes that'll happen, that a book that you're reading crashes into where you are.
But I do
And I've usually got a book on the go when I'm travelling and so on and so forth.
You're going to play a song for us today.
We're doubly treated, not just by your presence, but the fact you're going to sing for us.
Can you tell me about this song?
Because I believe it's a new song that we may not have heard before.
Well, no, I don't suppose you will.
I mean, I haven't heard it many times.
It's taken me
I am very slow about doing just about everything.
And about 40 years ago or so, when we were 11 or 12 in grammar school,
the horror of the school Christmas party came round.
And the school Christmas party would be looming.
And one of the things that you had to do was ask a girl to go to the Christmas party with you.
And MacIntyre, who was our games teacher, was an ex-Scots commando, and we were terrified of him.
And his method of punishment was to summon you towards him.
And he'd say, Martin Offler, come here, boy.
And you'd go to him and you'd say, take off your slipper.
And you'd take your slipper off.
Touch your toes.
So there was this one, two, three, bang.
And now you've written a song for him.
Yeah, well, I think it's compromised
There's no justice in this world, Martin Offler.
It severely compromised my ballroom dancing ability.
Because instead of teaching us the games, he'd teach us waltzing in the gym.
We just had our little shorts.
And so these little boys all standing in the gym, he'd yell, find a space.
And their voice would boom in the gym.
And we'd find a space and they'd go, it's there, it's there.
It's not like that, boy.
And so we'd get all this stuff and we made a complete mess of
I can't waltz now without
Well, you're not going to waltz, you're going to sing.
So that's very lucky for all of us.
Thank you very, very much, Martin Offler.
as if we needed them to tell us that.
He's best known for his group Dire Straits, who became the biggest band in Britain since Pink Floyd,
and maybe in the world, and had one of the biggest selling albums of all time with Brothers in Arms.
But what many people don't know is that Mark is the only rock star to have a species of dinosaur named after him.
Strange, but true.
And that during those heady, hedonistic gigs in the 80s, his stimulant of choice on stage and off was a nice cup of tea.
Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Mark [Eb] Knopfler.
[D]
[N]
Mark, [Abm] I've mentioned your tea, and you do make a very sort of unlikely rock star, if we go by the literal definition of that.
Yet, in the 80s, you did find yourself at the helm of this sort of supersonic group,
this enormous edifice that was seen to epitomize everything about the kind of Gordon Gekko era,
in much the same way as Martin's book Money.
It must have been extremely strange for someone like yourself, who's not an attention seeker,
and I wondered at what point you realized that in order to reclaim your life, you had to walk away from it.
The scaling down, I think, was required, yeah.
Everything was too big.
I remember actually walking into catering at the back of one of these big gigs, and it got to a pretty big scale.
And there were some truck drivers in there who I didn't recognize, because they were leapfrogging stages to different places.
And when I saw these truck drivers that I didn't recognize, it was certainly a turning point.
I thought that it had got too big.
But I had lots of other times when I'd thought exactly the same thing.
Was there anything at all about being this kind of giant?
I've noticed there's a few gentlemen in the audience today, I don't know if you've seen them yourself,
that are wearing red T-shirts with a kind of iconic image of you, and they've got, they may even be glow-in-the-dark headbands,
I'm a bit worried about them.
They have my sympathy.
I mean, you ditched that outfit quite a long time ago.
I have.
Is there any reason why any self-respecting young man should still be wearing it?
None that I can think of.
But I do, the reason why I adopted that, in fact, was that I used to sweat with the old-fashioned lights.
The old lights are very heavy and very, very hot.
And I was spraying sweat all over the place when I was playing, and I couldn't see my cords through my tears.
Darling.
So that's really why I did that.
And when they brought in these modern lights, I didn't need to have a headband anymore, so I stopped wearing that.
Well, it's a miracle, with that kind of handicap, the spraying sweat handicap,
[N] that you managed to make it into this list of the world's greatest guitarists ever.
Number 27, I think it was.
Well, I think I would be a guitar teacher's worst nightmare if I do everything wrong on the guitar.
How do you mean?
Well, if this was a guitar neck, for instance, the correct way would be to play with your thumb in the back of the neck
and your wrist round here and adopt these impossible positions.
And I hold it like a plumber holds a hammer, you know.
Well, you certainly make it sing, nevertheless.
Your skills as a songwriter seem only to increase.
I know that no lesser figure than Bob Dylan was particularly taken with your lyrics.
I think on
Was it on Private Investigations when he
He liked the way you rhymed diary with inquiry.
Oh, yes, he did, yes.
I remember Bob saying that.
Yes, bless him.
No, it was a thrill for me, obviously, to be sought out by Bob.
And he came along to a thing we did.
We did our first club tour of the States.
This is what you do.
You do pubs and clubs and then you
You do cities.
And, yes, and that just led to working on some records and lots of names, but
I wanted to talk to you about your relationship with your lyrics, because you're sort of brimful of literary connections.
Your wife Kitty's just written her second novel, Crier's Hill.
Great tune.
It's great, absolutely.
It is great.
Well, you'd have to say that as well.
I know you think it, and I agree.
Well, I wouldn't just say that because I am quite serious about books, yeah.
Well, that's where I was going to take this, because you also studied English.
And I wondered how much literature had an effect on you as a songwriter.
I mean, there are songs, actually, of yours that have been inspired by books you've read.
Well, that's right.
I mean, I could be inspired by a bus timetable.
That doesn't say much for Thomas Pynchon.
No, but it can come from anywhere.
It can come from something somebody says.
It can come from a situation in which you find yourself.
And it can come from a picture or a scrapped newspaper.
But it can come from books and has come from books.
So two or three come immediately to mind.
And, yes, I mean, there was
What would they be?
Well, there was one recent one, for instance, where I was writing a song about a tattoo artist.
I've always been fascinated by that.
Since a child, you know, I was a victim of the fairground
and always been interested in the carnival and that side of things.
And I was reading this book by Sarah Hall called The Electric Michelangelo.
That's one of the last ones that
I think she's got a new one coming out quite soon.
And I was writing a song about a tattoo artist, and my song was called
is called
Ah, True Love Will Never Fade.
And I like that.
I like that.
But the book
What I mean is that what happens, a book that you're writing, you're reading,
can just conjoin with what you're doing and help in a major way.
The Thomas Pynchon one was Mason and Dixon.
I was
One of my travelling companions for a while.
It was a long book.
And I was flying into Philadelphia over the modern conurbation,
looking at these enormous ships.
And, again, that tied up with this Geordie chap
and the fellow from Gloucestershire.
And they're just two English guys hacking this enormous swathe through America.
The Mason-Dixon line, which you sing about.
Yeah, and sometimes that'll happen, that a book that you're reading crashes into where you are.
But I do
And I've usually got a book on the go when I'm travelling and so on and so forth.
You're going to play a song for us today.
We're doubly treated, not just by your presence, but the fact you're going to sing for us.
Can you tell me about this song?
Because I believe it's a new song that we may not have heard before.
Well, no, I don't suppose you will.
I mean, I haven't heard it many times.
It's taken me
I am very slow about doing just about everything.
And about 40 years ago or so, when we were 11 or 12 in grammar school,
the horror of the school Christmas party came round.
And the school Christmas party would be looming.
And one of the things that you had to do was ask a girl to go to the Christmas party with you.
And MacIntyre, who was our games teacher, was an ex-Scots commando, and we were terrified of him.
And his method of punishment was to summon you towards him.
And he'd say, Martin Offler, come here, boy.
And you'd go to him and you'd say, take off your slipper.
And you'd take your slipper off.
Touch your toes.
So there was this one, two, three, bang.
And now you've written a song for him.
Yeah, well, I think it's compromised
There's no justice in this world, Martin Offler.
It severely compromised my ballroom dancing ability.
Because instead of teaching us the games, he'd teach us waltzing in the gym.
We just had our little shorts.
And so these little boys all standing in the gym, he'd yell, find a space.
And their voice would boom in the gym.
And we'd find a space and they'd go, it's there, it's there.
It's not like that, boy.
And so we'd get all this stuff and we made a complete mess of
I can't waltz now without
Well, you're not going to waltz, you're going to sing.
So that's very lucky for all of us.
Thank you very, very much, Martin Offler.
Key:
Eb
D
Abm
Eb
D
Abm
Eb
D
_ _ _ According to Rolling Stone magazine, Mark Knopfler is ranked as one of the greatest guitarists of all time,
as if we needed them to tell us that.
He's best known for his group Dire Straits, who became the biggest band in Britain since Pink Floyd,
and maybe in the world, and had one of the biggest selling albums of all time with Brothers in Arms.
But what many people don't know is that Mark is the only rock star to have a species of dinosaur named after him.
Strange, but true.
And that during those heady, hedonistic gigs in the 80s, his stimulant of choice on stage and off was a nice cup of tea.
Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Mark [Eb] Knopfler. _
_ _ [D] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [N] _ _ _ _ _ _
Mark, [Abm] _ I've mentioned your tea, and you do make a very sort of unlikely rock star, if we go by the literal definition of that.
Yet, in the 80s, you did find yourself at the helm of this sort of supersonic group,
this enormous edifice that was seen to epitomize everything about the kind of Gordon Gekko era,
in much the same way as Martin's book Money.
It must have been extremely strange for someone like yourself, who's not an attention seeker,
and I wondered at what point you realized that in order to reclaim your life, you had to walk away from it.
The scaling down, I think, was required, yeah.
Everything was too big.
I remember actually walking into _ _ catering at the back of one of these big gigs, and it got to a pretty big scale.
And there were some truck drivers in there who I didn't recognize, because they were leapfrogging stages to different places.
And when I saw these truck drivers that I didn't recognize, it was certainly a turning point.
I thought that it had got too big.
But I had lots of other times when I'd thought exactly the same thing.
Was there anything at all about being this kind of giant?
I've noticed there's a few gentlemen in the audience today, I don't know if you've seen them yourself,
that are wearing red T-shirts with a kind of iconic image of you, and they've got, they may even be glow-in-the-dark headbands,
I'm a bit worried about them.
They have my sympathy.
I mean, you ditched that outfit quite a long time ago.
I have.
Is there any reason why any self-respecting young man should still be wearing it?
None that I can think of. _
But I do, the reason why I adopted that, in fact, was that I used to sweat with the old-fashioned lights.
The old lights are very heavy and very, very hot.
And I was spraying sweat all over the place when I was playing, and I couldn't see my cords through my tears.
Darling.
So that's really why I did that.
And when they brought in these modern lights, I didn't need to have a headband anymore, so I stopped wearing that.
Well, it's a miracle, with that kind of handicap, the spraying sweat handicap,
[N] that you managed to make it into this list of the world's greatest guitarists ever.
Number 27, I think it was.
Well, I think I would be a guitar teacher's worst nightmare if I do everything wrong on the guitar.
How do you mean?
Well, if this was a guitar neck, for instance, the correct way would be to play with your thumb in the back of the neck
and your wrist round here and adopt these impossible positions.
And I hold it like a plumber holds a hammer, you know.
Well, you certainly make it sing, nevertheless.
Your skills as a songwriter seem only to increase.
I know that no lesser figure than Bob Dylan was particularly taken with your lyrics.
I think on_
Was it on Private Investigations when he_
He liked the way you rhymed diary with inquiry.
Oh, yes, he did, yes.
I remember Bob saying that.
Yes, bless him. _
No, it was a thrill for me, obviously, to be sought out by Bob.
And he came along to a thing we did.
We did our first club tour of the States.
This is what you do.
You do pubs and clubs and then _ you_
You do cities.
And, yes, and that just led to working on some records and lots of names, but_
I wanted to talk to you about your relationship with your lyrics, because you're sort of brimful of literary connections.
Your wife Kitty's just written her second novel, Crier's Hill.
Great tune.
It's great, absolutely.
It is great.
Well, you'd have to say that as well.
I know you think it, and I agree.
Well, I wouldn't just say that because I am quite serious about books, yeah.
Well, that's where I was going to take this, because you also studied English.
And I wondered how much literature had an effect on you as a songwriter.
I mean, there are songs, actually, of yours that have been inspired by books you've read.
Well, that's right.
I mean, I could be inspired by a bus timetable.
_ That doesn't say much for Thomas Pynchon.
No, but it can come from anywhere.
It can come from something somebody says.
It can come from a situation in which you find yourself.
And it can come from a picture or a scrapped newspaper.
But it can come from books and has come from books.
So two or three come immediately to mind.
And, yes, I mean, there was_
What would they be?
Well, there was one recent one, for instance, where I was writing a song about a tattoo artist.
I've always been fascinated by that.
Since a child, you know, I was a victim of the fairground
and always been interested in the carnival and that side of things.
And I was reading this book by Sarah Hall called The Electric Michelangelo.
That's one of the last ones that_
I think she's got a new one coming out quite soon.
And I was writing a song about a tattoo artist, and my song was called_
is called_
Ah, True Love Will Never Fade.
And I like that.
I like that.
But the book_
What I mean is that what happens, a book that you're writing, you're reading,
can just conjoin with what you're doing and help in a major way.
The Thomas Pynchon one was Mason and Dixon.
I was_
One of my travelling companions for a while.
It was a long book.
And I was flying into Philadelphia over the modern conurbation,
looking at these enormous ships.
And, again, that tied up with this Geordie chap
and the fellow from Gloucestershire.
And they're just two English guys hacking this enormous swathe through America.
The Mason-Dixon line, which you sing about.
Yeah, and sometimes that'll happen, that a book that you're reading crashes into where you are.
But I do_
And I've usually got a book on the go when I'm travelling and so on and so forth.
You're going to play a song for us today.
We're doubly treated, not just by your presence, but the fact you're going to sing for us.
Can you tell me about this song?
Because I believe it's a new song that we may not have heard before.
Well, no, I don't suppose you will.
I mean, I haven't heard it many times.
It's _ taken me_
I am very slow about doing just about everything.
And _ about 40 years ago or so, _ when we were 11 or 12 in grammar school,
the horror of the school Christmas party came round.
And the school Christmas party would be looming.
And one of the things that you had to do was ask a girl to go to the Christmas party with you.
And MacIntyre, who was our games teacher, was an ex-Scots commando, and we were terrified of him.
And his method of punishment was to summon you towards him.
And he'd say, Martin Offler, come here, boy.
And you'd go to him and you'd say, take off your slipper.
And you'd take your slipper off.
Touch your toes.
So there was this one, two, three, bang.
_ And now you've written a song for him.
Yeah, well, I think it's compromised_
There's no justice in this world, Martin Offler.
It severely compromised my ballroom dancing _ ability.
Because instead of teaching us the games, he'd teach us waltzing in the gym.
We just had our little shorts.
And so these little boys all standing in the gym, he'd yell, find a space.
And their voice would boom in the gym.
And we'd find a space and they'd go, it's there, it's there.
It's not like that, boy.
And so we'd get all this stuff and we made a complete mess of_
I can't waltz now without_
Well, you're not going to waltz, you're going to sing.
So that's very lucky for all of us.
Thank you very, very much, Martin Offler. _ _ _ _ _ _
as if we needed them to tell us that.
He's best known for his group Dire Straits, who became the biggest band in Britain since Pink Floyd,
and maybe in the world, and had one of the biggest selling albums of all time with Brothers in Arms.
But what many people don't know is that Mark is the only rock star to have a species of dinosaur named after him.
Strange, but true.
And that during those heady, hedonistic gigs in the 80s, his stimulant of choice on stage and off was a nice cup of tea.
Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Mark [Eb] Knopfler. _
_ _ [D] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [N] _ _ _ _ _ _
Mark, [Abm] _ I've mentioned your tea, and you do make a very sort of unlikely rock star, if we go by the literal definition of that.
Yet, in the 80s, you did find yourself at the helm of this sort of supersonic group,
this enormous edifice that was seen to epitomize everything about the kind of Gordon Gekko era,
in much the same way as Martin's book Money.
It must have been extremely strange for someone like yourself, who's not an attention seeker,
and I wondered at what point you realized that in order to reclaim your life, you had to walk away from it.
The scaling down, I think, was required, yeah.
Everything was too big.
I remember actually walking into _ _ catering at the back of one of these big gigs, and it got to a pretty big scale.
And there were some truck drivers in there who I didn't recognize, because they were leapfrogging stages to different places.
And when I saw these truck drivers that I didn't recognize, it was certainly a turning point.
I thought that it had got too big.
But I had lots of other times when I'd thought exactly the same thing.
Was there anything at all about being this kind of giant?
I've noticed there's a few gentlemen in the audience today, I don't know if you've seen them yourself,
that are wearing red T-shirts with a kind of iconic image of you, and they've got, they may even be glow-in-the-dark headbands,
I'm a bit worried about them.
They have my sympathy.
I mean, you ditched that outfit quite a long time ago.
I have.
Is there any reason why any self-respecting young man should still be wearing it?
None that I can think of. _
But I do, the reason why I adopted that, in fact, was that I used to sweat with the old-fashioned lights.
The old lights are very heavy and very, very hot.
And I was spraying sweat all over the place when I was playing, and I couldn't see my cords through my tears.
Darling.
So that's really why I did that.
And when they brought in these modern lights, I didn't need to have a headband anymore, so I stopped wearing that.
Well, it's a miracle, with that kind of handicap, the spraying sweat handicap,
[N] that you managed to make it into this list of the world's greatest guitarists ever.
Number 27, I think it was.
Well, I think I would be a guitar teacher's worst nightmare if I do everything wrong on the guitar.
How do you mean?
Well, if this was a guitar neck, for instance, the correct way would be to play with your thumb in the back of the neck
and your wrist round here and adopt these impossible positions.
And I hold it like a plumber holds a hammer, you know.
Well, you certainly make it sing, nevertheless.
Your skills as a songwriter seem only to increase.
I know that no lesser figure than Bob Dylan was particularly taken with your lyrics.
I think on_
Was it on Private Investigations when he_
He liked the way you rhymed diary with inquiry.
Oh, yes, he did, yes.
I remember Bob saying that.
Yes, bless him. _
No, it was a thrill for me, obviously, to be sought out by Bob.
And he came along to a thing we did.
We did our first club tour of the States.
This is what you do.
You do pubs and clubs and then _ you_
You do cities.
And, yes, and that just led to working on some records and lots of names, but_
I wanted to talk to you about your relationship with your lyrics, because you're sort of brimful of literary connections.
Your wife Kitty's just written her second novel, Crier's Hill.
Great tune.
It's great, absolutely.
It is great.
Well, you'd have to say that as well.
I know you think it, and I agree.
Well, I wouldn't just say that because I am quite serious about books, yeah.
Well, that's where I was going to take this, because you also studied English.
And I wondered how much literature had an effect on you as a songwriter.
I mean, there are songs, actually, of yours that have been inspired by books you've read.
Well, that's right.
I mean, I could be inspired by a bus timetable.
_ That doesn't say much for Thomas Pynchon.
No, but it can come from anywhere.
It can come from something somebody says.
It can come from a situation in which you find yourself.
And it can come from a picture or a scrapped newspaper.
But it can come from books and has come from books.
So two or three come immediately to mind.
And, yes, I mean, there was_
What would they be?
Well, there was one recent one, for instance, where I was writing a song about a tattoo artist.
I've always been fascinated by that.
Since a child, you know, I was a victim of the fairground
and always been interested in the carnival and that side of things.
And I was reading this book by Sarah Hall called The Electric Michelangelo.
That's one of the last ones that_
I think she's got a new one coming out quite soon.
And I was writing a song about a tattoo artist, and my song was called_
is called_
Ah, True Love Will Never Fade.
And I like that.
I like that.
But the book_
What I mean is that what happens, a book that you're writing, you're reading,
can just conjoin with what you're doing and help in a major way.
The Thomas Pynchon one was Mason and Dixon.
I was_
One of my travelling companions for a while.
It was a long book.
And I was flying into Philadelphia over the modern conurbation,
looking at these enormous ships.
And, again, that tied up with this Geordie chap
and the fellow from Gloucestershire.
And they're just two English guys hacking this enormous swathe through America.
The Mason-Dixon line, which you sing about.
Yeah, and sometimes that'll happen, that a book that you're reading crashes into where you are.
But I do_
And I've usually got a book on the go when I'm travelling and so on and so forth.
You're going to play a song for us today.
We're doubly treated, not just by your presence, but the fact you're going to sing for us.
Can you tell me about this song?
Because I believe it's a new song that we may not have heard before.
Well, no, I don't suppose you will.
I mean, I haven't heard it many times.
It's _ taken me_
I am very slow about doing just about everything.
And _ about 40 years ago or so, _ when we were 11 or 12 in grammar school,
the horror of the school Christmas party came round.
And the school Christmas party would be looming.
And one of the things that you had to do was ask a girl to go to the Christmas party with you.
And MacIntyre, who was our games teacher, was an ex-Scots commando, and we were terrified of him.
And his method of punishment was to summon you towards him.
And he'd say, Martin Offler, come here, boy.
And you'd go to him and you'd say, take off your slipper.
And you'd take your slipper off.
Touch your toes.
So there was this one, two, three, bang.
_ And now you've written a song for him.
Yeah, well, I think it's compromised_
There's no justice in this world, Martin Offler.
It severely compromised my ballroom dancing _ ability.
Because instead of teaching us the games, he'd teach us waltzing in the gym.
We just had our little shorts.
And so these little boys all standing in the gym, he'd yell, find a space.
And their voice would boom in the gym.
And we'd find a space and they'd go, it's there, it's there.
It's not like that, boy.
And so we'd get all this stuff and we made a complete mess of_
I can't waltz now without_
Well, you're not going to waltz, you're going to sing.
So that's very lucky for all of us.
Thank you very, very much, Martin Offler. _ _ _ _ _ _