“Always great”: the 1978 song Mark Knopfler crowned as the height of perfect simplicity
Mastering the art of simplicity is an often-overlooked item in the songwriting toolkit, despite the likes of Dire Straits’ Mark Knopfler achieving remarkable results through this method.
Naturally, artists shy away from being simple and direct for a multitude of reasons. Namely, from a lyrical perspective, they want to either hide behind metaphors to give them a cloak to cover their true feelings, which can be daunting to share with the entire world.
Or, from a musical standpoint, they want to prove to people that they are a true virtuoso of the highest order, capable of doing things with a guitar that nobody has heard before, which they believe will blow listeners’ tiny minds. Admittedly, if artists didn’t think like that, then we’d never have got game-changing albums like Radiohead’s Kid A that shift the dialtones, and reshape musical boundaries. However, not every band has a Kid A in them, and nor should they attempt to.
Sometimes, thinking inside the box when everybody else is trying to think outside the box can be a radical act in itself. It can also mine some of the finest results, too, such as ‘Yesterday’ by The Beatles, which Paul McCartney didn’t overthink and allowed to flow out of him.
When it comes to riffs, two of the most well-known in rock history are ‘Smoke on the Water’ by Deep Purple and ‘Seven Nation Army’ by The White Stripes, which anyone can play on the guitar after a couple of beginner lessons.
For Knopfler, embracing the art of simplicity didn’t come immediately to him, and it wasn’t until the latter years of Dire Straits that they opted for the gut-punching direct rock route, which was a world away from songs like 1982’s ‘Telegraph Road’. However, evolution doesn’t always mean getting more ambitious and experimental with every release; instead, Knopfler learned that taking a step back was a path more filled with gold.
Speaking to Rolling Stone in 1985, Knopfler acknowledged Dire Straits’ adoption of a more back-to-basics approach, singling out a Willie Nelson track from 1978 as proof that simplicity is an underrated approach, sharing, “I’m not saying I’ve had it with ambiguity or that things can’t be multilayered. I’ve just become more drawn to writing those kinds of songs, where there is no problem in terms of who’s singing what. If I listen to Willie Nelson sing ‘Blue Skies’, it always strikes me as great, very simple and direct.”
‘Blue Skies’ doesn’t overcomplicate anything in regards to its arrangement, but thanks to Nelson’s cute fingerpicking and tender vocals, it immediately transports you as a listener to a beautiful summer’s day, which spoke to Knopfler. The Dire Straits founder added, “Sometimes it’s better to go for the big, broad, beautiful statement rather than start getting involved in all this ambiguity.”
He also highlighted Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Born in the USA’ as an example of a song that was misinterpreted because it wasn’t direct in its meaning, making listeners dig under the surface for its true message, adding, “The meaning has been taken and distorted by outsiders and used for their own purposes. I certainly don’t want Reagan coming on to my songs and using them.”
While results can vary, and more often than not, simplicity can come off as boringly vanilla, when it’s done right, like on ‘Blue Skies’, nothing can compete with it on a viscerally emotional level.
