In terms of lyrical content, Dire Straits' "Sultans of Swing" is an exceedingly odd song to have climbed nearly to the top of the U.S. and U.K. music charts (numbers 8 and 4, respectively). Most radio hits are about love, lost love, wanting love, needing love, hating love, or shaking your booty on a dance floor. "Sultans," however, is about a group of part-time musicians playing Creole to a disinterested crowd in an anonymous London pub. That's sort of strange, if you think about it.

Of course, the ambience of the tune isn't so simple. There's something vaguely mysterious, almost mystical, about the song. It's a story song that places us, the listeners, at the heart. It starts us off shivering in the dark on a rainy London night, with no clear indication of where we've come from or where we're going to. We follow the sound of music to a little bar where a group of characters plays their Dixie tunes for young men who only want rock and roll. The whole thing plays out in a dreamy sort of way, and then slips on by and is gone again.

Whatever the cumulative effect of the music might be, the inspiration for it was very much grounded in reality. Dire Straits lead vocalist and guitarist Mark Knopfler wrote the lyric after seeing a band, rather grandiosely-named The Sultans of Swing, playing a little place in Deptford, southeast London. The scene was just as that painted in the song, and Knopfler appreciated the incongruence of it. However, he did not write the song out of a desire to mock or ridicule. Rather, he respected such artists for striving to express themselves despite not having any real prospects at becoming rich or famous doing it.

"I've always been attracted to people who can find a way expressing themselves in tough circumstances," Knopfler has explained. "You, know, it's always spoken to me as a theme somehow, but the sympathy goes out to them—doesn't matter whether it's Sultans of Swings or Les Boys or somebody who's just painting a city garden or something. It's a kind of liberating thing, you know, when things are on top of you. Music's always been that way to me, in that it's always a source of comfort to me."

Deptford's history goes back a lot farther than Sultans. In 1513, Henry VIII designated it to be the first Royal Dockyard, where Royal Navy vessels were built. From that time onward, the economic health of the neighborhood has been tied directly to its shipbuilding. The area thrived for a good long while, until 1815 when the end of the Napoleonic Wars and competition from other dockyards took their toll. The final ship built at the Dockyards was named the HMS Druid.

Today, some Deptford neighborhoods are being gentrified, but much of the area is still trying to find new economic footing with the Dockyards. The Deptford Market, which has been in business for centuries, continues to thrive as one of the busiest shopping centers in London.

Nobody knows exactly who that band was that inspired Knopfler to write that Dire Straits song so many years ago. They never came forward to lay claim to the name; or, if they did, nobody paid attention. If you ever find yourself shivering in the dark in Deptford, however, don't be surprised if you hear the sound of horns playing somewhere in the distance. Don't bother hunting down the source of the music, though, if you like to listen to rock and roll. The Sultans of Swing play only Creole.

Jeff Suwak
July 7, 2017 Sultans of Swing Songfacts
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Comments: 1

• AnonymousI do give a damn about a trumpet playin' band...
  

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