Disc 136 is...Sailing To Philadelphia
Artist: Mark Knopfler
Year of Release: 2000
What’s Up With The Cover?: An out of focus passenger jet against a blue sky. I like it, and it captures the spirit of the record to come.
How I Came To Know It: I had bought Knopfler's earlier solo album, 1996's "Golden Heart" and loved it, so this was just me following up. As it happened, "Sailing to Philadelphia" was a much bigger record (big being relative with respect to Knopfler's solo career).
How It Stacks Up: As you are no doubt tiring of reading recently, I have eight Knopfler albums. I'd have to say this is #1 - or maybe tied for #1.
Rating: 5 stars. There are songs that don't fit the five star bill, but when the album is put together and listened to from bow to stern, it is a five star experience. So five, but barely.
"Sailing To Philadelphia" and "Golden Heart" are the beginnings of the folk-rock sound that Knopfler is still playing today (and which I recently reviewed for his last release, "Get Lucky"). He has never matched the quality of the first two records here, but that would be a hard task to accomplish.
When I first bought this record ten years ago, Sheila and I played the living hell out of it. We recommended it incessantly to friends (sorry, everyone) and if there had been a T-shirt featuring it, or a book written about it I'm sure I would've bought those as well. Zealotry is rarely pretty in hindsight.
A few years later, I had to put it on the shelf, for fear of killing all my joy for it. Since then, I've tried hard to buy at least two albums at a time, if for no other reason than to avoid overplay.
It is a testament to this album's quality that it wasn't too long before I was again putting it into the mix. It still stands up today, as fresh as ever.
The first two tracks are the best two, immediately grabbing your attention. "What It Is" is a pure rock and roll number, with a guitar lick that catches you from the opening notes. The guitar here, and throughout the record is Knopfler at his best. A bluesy, atmospheric sound with a rock edge.
"What It Is" is infused with energy, as it thematically bids farewell to Scotland with a song about all things Scotland - it is all pipers and castle walls and ghosts, cold weather, beer and energy. I love it.
The second song shows us the other side of Knopfler's guitar mastery, as he instantly morphs into a folksy classical picking sound. He takes us across the Atlantic to the United States where the record will stay.
"Sailing To Philadelphia" is a duet sung with James Taylor about the creation of the Mason-Dixon line. It is a true folk song, acoustic and touching - putting a human face on the two people who undertook this task. It is a perfect counterpoint to "What It Is" and moreover is one of the better folk songs I've ever heard. Here's the intro:
"I am Jeremiah Dixon/I am a Geordie boy
A glass of wine with you sir/And the ladies I'll enjoy
All Durham and Northumberland/Is measured up by my own hand
It was my fate from birth/To make my mark upon the earth...
"He calls me Charlie Mason/A stargazer am I
It seems that I was born/To chart the evening sky
They'd cut me out for baking bread/But I had other dreams instead
This baker's boy from the west country/Would join the Royal Society."
I can play it again and again and never tire of the story - more remarkable given that pretty much all I know about Mason and Dixon I learned from this song.
From here, Knopfler applies his considerable talents at both the guitar and songwriting to snapshots of America, past and present.
He writes about segregationism in the 50s from the perspective of a black family trying to find a place to eat ("Baloney Again"), and what it would have been like to be an early western farmer, never meeting your bride-to-be except through letter, untilthe day she steps off the train and you take her home ("Prairie Wedding").
His song about stock car racing, "Speedway at Nazareth" is a brilliant insight into the mind of a race car driver. It is also the perfectly paced to make you viscerally feel like you yourself are behind the wheel. This song to me is always a great counterpoint to the more introspective racing song "Racing In the Streets" by Springsteen.
In his lighter moments, Knopfler writes about what it is like to be a British rock star taking your act to the USA in "Do America":
"Well I've been at it ever since I was a kid at school
Now they love me in Newcastle and in Liverpool
I'm as hot as a pistol I can do no wrong
I've been to Birmingham and Briston playing my song.
"Take a 777 to the USA
Gonna party all night I'm gonna sleep all day
See New York City 'cos I've never been
New York City in a limousine."
This album is Knopfler's love song to America, warts and all. In fact the last image he leaves you with is the desolation of a gambler who has lost everything he owns to his addiction in "Sands of Nevada."
Whether he's celebrating with rock bravado, or digging into the ugly places, Knopfler manages to write a series of songs about a country that are both intimate, and alien. Covering miles of territory, yet never pretending to fully understand what he sees - kind of like that out of focus airplane on the cover.
It is a great record, and if years ago you escaped my haranguing you to buy it - consider yourself harangued. The first two tracks will blow you away - but the next eleven will sneak up on you just as surely with each new listen.
Best tracks: What It Is, Sailing To Philadelphia, Do America, Prairie Wedding, Wanderlust, Speedway at Nazareth, Sands of Nevada
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