Sultans of swing

Sultans of swing - a shameless display of musical passion

I'm driving toward Marrickville. On my right some pub, on the left, the
park, behind which is the private hospital where my dad's sister, now
Alzheimic, once worked as a nurse.

Strange, I too must have Alzheimer's. I can't recall why I was on that
road. There was a time when I drove down it every second Friday for
access to my sons, but that's years later.

Anyhow, I'm listening to double jay, magic station of new
rock-and-roll. Cutting edge stuff, not Elvis and the Golden Oldies. The
very latest from Australia and overseas. Pre-release stuff. Some weird
and horrible, no let's be honest, most is weird and horrible, but you
tuned out to all that, in the sure and certain knowledge that this was
where the gold would glisten through the shite.

So I'm driving along, and my mind is fizzing everywhere, and anywhere.
I was wondering whether the pub was the Newington, because I'd been
told it had strippers and topless barmaids, and if it did, I thought
I'd stop but it wasn't the Newington, it was something else, and you
can see by all this that I was wrapped up in my own convoluted thoughts
and I didn't even know if the radio was on, off, or flying round the
car when?

Woweeeee, my attention is there 180 percent. There's guitars gliding up
and down through rounded soft plucks that no one could do, and no one
would think of. Magic riffs, no not riffs, but a whole series of them
strung together in an extravagant musical journey, that grabbed me by
the balls in the nicest possible way. On blinkers, on breaks, stop the
car, spin the volume high, open the windows as this great singer cuts
in, and it's my duty to share it with the entire suburb:

you get a shiver in the dark
its raining in the park but meantime
south of the river you stop and you hold everything
a band is blowing Dixie double four time
you feel alright when you hear that music ring

?di dit dee, did id deee, diddli diddli dli? You can't listen to it
without diddlee-ing along, even the first time. But as they go on, the
lips fail, or mine do at any rate. I can't keep up. How can anyone
pluck a guitar at that speed, but damn I can hear it, and I marvel at
it.

I wish I had a musical education so that I could use the right words
here, but clearly I don't.. So I lay back in the seat, luxuriating, and
let Dire straits roll over me, then froze, no moving, no breathing at
the end, pen and paper in hand, ready to write down the details. None
came.

I listened for weeks, day and night, whenever I could. Maybe it was
just me. I feared, maybe no one else liked them, and I'd never hear of
them again. I mean, I am the only person I know to like Kevin Coyne's
Millionaires and Teddy Bears, and 'friends' have even walked out
holding their ears when I played it.

But back to Dire Straits a name I didn't know, but they'd said 'we are
the sultans, the sultans of swing' di dit dee, did it dee, see here I
go again, any how I remembered these words, and I found them eventually
in a record shop. I was intoxicated, borne away with the music.

Bottom line: A Dire Straits addict c'est moi! Can't get enough?

Few other pieces grab me by the testes. John Lennon's Imagine, Gerry
Rafferty's Baker Street, Olivia Neutron Bomb's If not for you, anyone's
Don't walk away, Renee, Jeff St John's Teach me how to fly, and
anything by the (Australian) Loved Ones all do.

Boz Scaggs' Lido Shuffle, I play endlessly and never tire of it.

But Sultans does something more. It gets better every time.
Really.
'
di dit deeee, did it deee?.