Mark Knopfler: A Life in Songs

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in Vanderbilt in Nashville.

And the Evs came along,

and it's a real thrill to be playing your song with the Evs.

# Why worry?

# There should be laughter after pain

# There should be sunshine after rain

# These things have always been the same

# So why worry now? #

By the age of 16, while patiently waiting to go electric,

Knopfler could be found finger-picking his way

around the folk clubs of Newcastle.

Doing things like,

# I'm going down that road and I'm feelin' bad, baby

# Going down that road and I'm feelin' bad

# Ain't gonna be treated this way

# These two darn shoes kill my feet, baby

# Daughter's shoes is killing my feet

# Ain't gonna be treated this way. #

So this kind of duality going on

where I'd be playing in folk places at the age of 16

and wanting to play electric music as well.

For a kid growing up in Newcastle in the '60s,

no music was more electrifying than that of the blues.

One bluesman in particular, BB King,

would create a lasting impression on the young Mark Knopfler.

He had a record called Live at the Regal

and that was really, really important for me.

It was a very definite thing happening.

This relationship between the voice, the guitar and the audience

that I'd never heard before and made a big impression on me.

# The way I used to love you, baby

# Baby, that's the way I hate you now. #

And then Bob Dylan, of course, changed it all for me.

As far as realising that you could write about anything.

# Oh, my name, it ain't nothing.

# My age, it means less.

# The country I come from is called the mid-west

# I was taught and brought up there The laws to abide.

# And the land that I lived in has God on its side. #

Obviously, your childhood influences, they all help, but what they all did,

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