Well, here's a story I've been waiting 30 years to tell. I learnt the song Sultans of Swing from my French teacher, name of George Walker, who told me that he was the subject of that song. He said he met Knopfler when he came into the pub, and he and the band had a nice chat afterwards. He would have been in his 40s in the late 80s (I'm guessing), and his jazz band played occasionally at our school (in West Sussex). Yes, he was a rhythm player, and yes he knew all the chords. I think he played a sunburst Gibson 335. I don't think he was professional or ever released a record. He was a very down-to-earth bloke, and he didn't seem to be bragging when he said this story - he just mentioned it as an interesting anecdote to a keen young guitar player (i.e. me!) The teachers seemed to know this story and no one seemed to doubt it. Of course, he might have been mistaken, it might not have been Knopfler, or I might have remembered it wrong. But I've been boring the socks off people for decades now with that bit of trivia.
I don't remember him ever mentioning the pub name or the band name - certainly the band I saw him play in had a different name (probably different members, as he was presumably living in Sussex - maybe Brighton? - not London). He was pretty overweight when I was at school, and I think he might have been a smoker, so I don't know whether he would still be alive now. I hope so - he was a lovely guy!
Here's my Dire Straits true story. In 1987 my dad was on a train in the home counties. He got talking with an older gentleman there. They talked about the trains and the weather and compared notes about family. My dad mentioned that I was doing my A'levels, and they both agreed on the importance of education and that there are no jobs for life any more, because things aren't like they were back in their day, etc, etc. The older gentleman said he was concerned about his nephew, who he thought really ought to get a proper career instead of messing about with music. The nephew is in a band, apparently they are quite well known, my dad might even have heard of them.... Dire Straits or something like that? My dad reassured the older gentleman his nephew would probably be ok for a few quid for now.
I bought a Marshall amp from David in July 1977 while they were living at Farrar House - I still have the receipt. My recollection was that they were living on the ground floor, not the first, although this was 43 years ago. I checked the receipt this evening and it says they were at number 1, which I assume was (and probably still is) on the ground floor. There were three guys living there and the flat was littered with empty beer cans. I was just learning to play the guitar and had bought a cheap Stratocaster copy. Mark brought out a string of wonderful Gibsons and Fenders to demonstrate the amp and after hearing him play, I had to buy it. He said they were doing a gig at a pub in Deptford High Street that evening (it was a Saturday) and invited me to the gig. Unfortunately, it would have been too far to come back, so I asked the name of the band and told them I'd look out for them if they did any gigs on the other side of London. I did regret not going.
Your story about early days of Dire Straits is really interesting. What is the exact date written on the receipt? I would love to see it, would you be able to share a photo of it on some social media?
The only known Dire Straits gig from that month (July) is the one they played at the Albany Empire in Deptford on 28th July 1977 in support of Squeeze. Do you think that's the gig they invited you to? If your receipt indicates a different day you’d have proof of a Dire Straits concert not known so far.
this channel is like when you visit a friend in an unfamiliar city who takes you on a tour and shows you the little known bits and pieces that you'd never see on a regular tour
And - just like that good friend - Jago knows just enough to make it interesting, but not so much that he drives you away (or at least has the self-control to only tell the interesting parts).
Extract from Mark Knopler 1983 Dire Straits biography. Through the spring and early summer of 1977 the songs kept coming. Wild West End’ was written about Mark’s wanderings around London; ’Southbound Again' came from memories of trips to the capital. Of ‘Sultans of Swing', Mark says: "Sultans" was written quite a long time before the band; I hadn't met John then. Dave was living somewhere down in Greenwich and we just went out to the pub - I think it was called the "Swan," something like that, in Greenwich High Road - and had a game of pool and a couple of pints. There was a jazz band playing, and there was nobody in there except us and a couple of kids in the comer. They did a couple of requests. I asked them for "Creole Love Call", and it was great. There are loads of bands like that. They're postmen, milkmen, accountants, draughtsmen, teachers. They just get together Sunday lunchtimes, night-times, and they play trad. And it's funny because they play this New Orleans music note for note - in Greenwich.' John remembers that originally 'Sultans’ was very different. The lyrics were the same but the tune was completely different. 'I have the feeling that he wrote some music one day and said, Hey, I've got some great new chords for “Sultans"!'
@@chrisnorthall8317 hey, well I had to do some simple research since your reply and in wikipedia it shows the dates of that tour. Dire Straits scheduled that tour to end in Oceania. They did 13 concerts in a row in Melbourne in feb 1986, went to NZ for a few then returned to Sydney to do 16 concerts in a row in March 1986. I went to 2 of those concerts at the Ent Cent. It was unprecedented for a band to do that many shows all in a row which is why the last concert was televised live on Nine and simulcast on Triple M. I was on a first date that night and was somehow discretely listening to it on my car stereo as we traveled to whatever restaurant near Millers Point (shit this is bringing up memories lol) but was wishing I was at home watching that first ever Live concert simulcast, well in Australia that is. Because of the success in Sydney, and after they toured around Australia, they did another 4 shows between 23-26 April 1986,, that being the end of the tour. I'm sure I found that live concert simulcast here on You Tube. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brothers_in_Arms_Tour Rock On!
@@chrisnorthall8317 Actually closer to 22 in Sydney on that tour! 15 in Melbourne, 10 or 12 in Brisbane, plus going to places like Townsville, Cairns, Hobart, Alice Springs, Darwin. Just amazing, never before had a tour of such a popular band been so extensive.
A former boss of mine was on long island a long time ago driving with his dad. He had to use the bathroom so they stopped at a place. My boss went to the bathroom and his dad listened to the piano man playing. When my boss came out he said "ok dad let's go". His father told him to hold on a minute because he wanted to listen to the piano man play a little bit more. The piano man turned out to be the piano man himself Billy Joel. To this day they couldn't tell you the name of the place but they still can tell you how great the guy at the piano was.
Billy Joel really was the piano man at someplace on the US East Coast, some seaside place. Humble beginnings and a reminder to work on my voice 'cos gotta do Piano Man.
I'm sure I read that the song was about a band who played in The Millers pub on Greenwich High Rd, which is just round the corner from the White Swan shown in the video. That pub lay derelict for years and was demolished about a year ago. The Knopflers' flat on Crossfields has a blue plaque outside, and the wall which had 'Love Over Gold' graffiti'd on it, and inspired their 1982 album of the same name, has also been immortalised with a mural. It's virtually next to the flat.
I think what makes the song a classic, especially to musicians, is the way its a tale we all can relate. I once traveled 100 miles to do a gig in Southampton, where there were 3 people in the 'crowd'. We were a 5 piece band, so even if we added the bar man into the equation we still out numbered the audience. I ended up singing the lead vocal from a bar stool at the bar just so there were more folk watching than playing!! Rock and roll can be a vicious game... but great fun.
I once traveled like 200 miles as a hired gun to play to like six people in the audience (including the sound guy, bartender and club manager). So yeah, definitely know what it feels like.
I can certainly relate to that. Played in a venue described as "East Anglia's premier rock venue." An old man with his dog and two people playing pool. The pool players actually complained that we were too loud. The silence that greeted the end of each song was similar to that in an anechoic chamber! Ah, fun times.
Yeah, but did you all go on to bigger and better things? There was a local club band in the North East back in the eighties who were brilliant musicians who never made it big but one of them told me they loved doing the clubs as they always got a great audience.
If you ever want to dodge youtube copyright bots on music, just slow it doen or speed it up by 5%, it's almost indistinguishable to human ears without being told, and will totally bypass the bots. That or search for the 8 bit/midi version on youtube!
Does it matter whether or not you maintain pitch? That is to say, is the natural pitch change from speeding up/slowing down part of what makes this work?
@@ChloeStandingUpstairs Oh yeah, I know how to do that, I was just curious whether you specifically wanted to disable that feature. I've read that the signature is a hash based on frequency analysis, so shifting the frequency might be what makes this work in the first place.
This video starts with the idea that it happened when they were in Deptford but David Knopfler told me that it was before Deptford, when David was sharing a flat in Greenwich and Mark came to visit him. Also John Illsley told me that he wasn't living with David when they saw the Sultans, that it was before Deptford days. I did my own research for a book, and also was mentioned in the Michael Oldfield book "Dire straits" written in cooperation with the band. David thought it could had been the White Swan but wasn't sure.
The thing is, the lyrics go: *_"You take a walk in the dark,_* *_"It's rainin' in the park,_* *_"But meantime,_* *_"You hear a sound and you stop and you hold ev'rything..."_* This implies that you could hear the music _while still in_ the park since he doesn't approach the door of the venue until the _end_ of that verse, so we're looking for a venue which is in earshot of the park (or at least one of the entrances to the park), so probably along an adjacent road. Also, I think it's fair to broaden the definition of "park" to any grassy public area, rather than places which specifically have the word "park" in the name; having known many born-and-bred Saaf Landaners in my time, they tend not to limit the descriptor to the name so much as consider any place with some grass, a few trees and maybe a kiddies' playground where you could walk a dog to be a "park" in the general sense of the word. This could therefore include somewhere as close as Mary Ann Gardens, which is a sizeable grassy area which is practically across the road from the Crossfield estate - perhaps Knopfler was strolling in a clockwise direction around the outside of the "park" and heard the music while returning along the eastern edge next to Church St to head home via Coffey St and through the churchyard? If it started raining particularly heavily as you reached the northeast corner of the gardens, even the few minutes it would take to walk home from there would seem an unpleasant prospect in comparison to a quick pint in the warm and dry, especially if the music is as good as Knopfler implies. Knowing how many old pubs have since been repurposed or just plain demolished since 1977, especially in areas as extensively redeveloped as Deptford has been since the Docklands industrial area was cleared out and renewed in the Eighties, it's entirely possible that the venue in question has already been lost to the ages - you'd need someone well-versed in all the local drinking holes along Deptford Church St back in the day to remember where it might have stood. For all I know of the area, it's entirely possible that Mary Ann Gardens were part of the redevelopment and didn't even exist at the time... the map has changed significantly in that bit of London in particular just within my lifetime. Also, the place does sound like it's practically dead except for the kids in the corner heckling the musicians, and there's mention in the lyrics of *_"Competition from other places,"_* which implies that the venue might well be in... well... _dire straits_ financially at the time of the gig anyway (I'm sorry, but once I realised the pun was coming it was too late to back out!) - so it's entirely possible that the pub was already closed down or sold and repurposed by the time the song was recorded and released in any case, and could've been demolished, built over and forgotten in the renewal effort since. It's just struck me that I've probably spent more time thinking about this than you spent filming the video, so I'm going to stop over-analyzing now...! lol
Oh - and I'll make it fast - just one more thing... I'm aware that Mark Knopfler grew up in Newcastle - not Deptford - and only moved to London later on, but it's still fair to say that after living in the Crossfield estate for a while he would likely start referring to local places as the locals would (when in Rome, after all...) so I think it's reasonable that he would refer to Mary Ann Gardens as "the park" just as everyone else around him would. I didn't mean to imply that any of the band members were dyed-in-the-wool Deptford boys, just that he would undoubtedly have started talking in the local vernacular by the time he felt comfortable enough in his surroundings to be confidently walking the area around his home alone at night... especially a park in the Docklands in the Seventies.
@@kdisley Just for info, since you've put so much thought into this, people in the north east refer to any patch of open communal space with a few trees and some swings in it as a 'park' too. So Mark Knopfler wouldn't particularly have had to adopt that as local terminology.
An interesting theory and one I have to admit I have never heard of before so how about I chuck this one into the mix. As a young lad in the 1970s I used to commute to the City of London on my Motorbike from my parent's house in Erith. My journey would take me through Greenwich and Deptford along the Lower Road. As the lower road leaves Deptford it passes by many local boozers including The Cricketers, the China Hall, The Jolly Caulkers and the Prince of Orange. Now I was fascinated by the sign that seemed to be always in the window of the Prince of Orange advertising Live Jazz by their resident band "Harry Gold and his pieces of eight" . Harry Gold was quite a well know Trad Jazz artist of the 1950s but by 1972 when I started commuting Trad Jazz was pretty much dead on it's legs. However Harry and the band would certainly be "blowin' Dixie, double-four time" .The Prince of Orange is just a short walk from Southwark Park. It's not a million miles from the Crossfield estate. The Prince is now converted into flats, The China Hall is shut, the Jolly caulkers is gone too and the cricketers is a supermarket I think.
As a jazz pianist in the 80s, lately moved to London, I worked in Harry's band briefly, one of our gigs was at the Prince of Orange. They did great pizzas! (The pub, that is, not the band.)
The song could also be an elegy to the death of pubs, where such music could be heard. Hardly any of the boozers of my 70s youth are going concerns, and quite a few no longer exist. Some of them had stood for centuries, seen off by changing entertainment, lifestyle and work patterns, cheap supermarket ale, and the dying characters who used to patronise them.
@@borderlands6606 and the tories deregulation of breweries owning pubs, break that monopoly and create a new one of pub chains who are happy to run down and shut an redevelop on a shameful scale Happy days in SE London
Eric Lund Well, if Mark were to give us the answer, then we won’t have the chance to wistfully wonder about the lyrics and while away idle summer evenings in bliss ... That is all! No disrespect or offence intended, and if any has been taken, please accept the sincerest apologies!
could it be that he himself doesn't know the answer? He's at the local park at dusk and it begins to rain so he hurries home toward the estate and the rain begins to get heavier, he ducks into the nearest pub for shelter (he doesn't bother looking at the name as he only want's it for protection) and there he discovers the band. it stays in his memory and he eventually wrote the song about it but it had an almost mystical quality by this time in his mind and perhaps he misremembers certain details
Another classic, my Jago friend. Completely hooked on the channel now. Love this angle too as I'm also a huge fan of the Sultans of Swing. Please keep up the great work.
I was at Goldsmiths College in the early 90s and my halls of residence was next to The Duke in Deptford and I used to drink in there all the time. The landlord Eric had been running the pub since the 70s. He was a real character and he told me once that Dire Straits used to use one of the upstairs rooms to rehearse. Some time around 1978 they woke him up in the early hours of the morning as they needed to collect some equipment. He was annoyed at being woken and threw them out and told them never to come back as they were a bunch of losers that would never amount to anything. In his own words, "Sultans of Swing came out a few months later."!! There was also a gold disc behind the bar for the single "Only You" by the Flying pickets and apparently Squeeze used to play in there. The area was a hive of creativity....I used to drink in another pub around the corner where Jools Holland would be almost every night....and some of the cast of the original Vic Reeves TV series!! (This is all as best as I remember - it was a long time ago so hopefully my memory has served me correctly!!). Not exactly related...but this video popped up next to one of my own videos of me playing the Sultans solo on Ukulele - I'm playing it on banjo too if you want to see it on my channel!!
George Young was the older brother of Angus and Malcolm from AC/DC and a huge influence on them. Whether it's true or not I like the idea of Sultans of Swing being written about him.
Thanks Jago! This song is the anthem of all the amazing guitarists we see in pubs and wonder how come they didn't hit the big time. I don't think Knoppfler thought of them as a 'mediocre' band (Harry could play the Honky Tonk like anything). It's also important for beginner musicians, as this is the kind of stage life they can reasonably expect, given the amount of high quality competition out there. Knoppfler made it to the very top, but in those early days he might have composed this as a personal pep-talk!
The Sultans of Swing referred to Harry Vanda and George Young (yes related to Malcolm and Angus). Vanda and Young were singer songwriters who were original member of the Australian band The Easybeats. A band that went off to England in the sixties and paved the way for other Aussie bands. They were an unsophisticated band but had enormous talent. If you listen to the words he mentions them by name. The song pays homage to their abilities without expensive guitars and equipment. Vanda and Young went on to form a band called Flash 'n' the Pan and released a few hits, my favourite being "Down among the Dead Men".
Absolutely love it! By that I mean your video, as well as the song. I am pleased you are guided by evidence, and not rumour or wishfulness. I am pleased you were able to make a video featuring Deptford (an area I am fond of). I am also pleased you made a video about such a wonderful song ("Harry doesn't mind if he doesn't make the scene, he's got a daytime job, he's doing alright!") with a stellar guitar solo at the end (Knopfler's not a bad guitarist really). Wonderful!
Try the White Swan, 85 & 87 Greenwich High Road, Greenwich SE10. Closed 2007 (The Millers) now demolished. The small LESC building seen in old photos next to The White Swan, is still there. Greenwich "mean time", "its raining in the park" Greenwich Park. Not to be confused with The White Swan in Blackheath Road (closed), next to Greenwich Magistrates Court.
A long time ago I remember reading in Guitar Player Magazine that the "George" referred to in the song (check out George, he knows all the chords) refers to "George Van Eps", he mostly used the middle four strings on a seven string guitar but he "knows all the chords" as the song says. This information might have come from a Guitar Player interview of Mark Knopler in the early 1980s. On youtube check out George Van Eps playing "I've Got a Crush on You" and you can hear the very strong influence on Marks playing style.
@blue heeler The "swing" era he's referring to spanned from about 1930 to 1950 so it pre-dated modern guitar pop music. Please go and listen so George Van Eps videos, he's a unique guitar stylist who also wrote a 1,200 page book (3 volumes) called "Harmonic Mechanisms for Guitar".
Back in the late 90s, Q magazine had an article on the supposed "Guitar George" and that guy was called George Borowski, who released an album called "The Bait" in 1989.
About 30 years or so ago, I played in a band at the Swan in Blackheath. We were told then that Sultans of swing was written about that pub. Incidentally, it was a bit if a dump then, and doesn't look much different now!
Deptford produced the Chords, Dire Straits, Squeeze, Gary Oldman to name a few and if you believe the very compelling evidence, the man behind a lot of what we are told is Shakespeare but several of his works are forensically identical to Christopher Marlowe's work. Sadly Deptford also had a reputation for naughty no no's being a dockside town and a common haunt for "mollys" such as Marlowe with houses of sordid repute operating outside of the then crowns beady eye in London proper. Can I wave to my old friend and Deptfordian Gary Dignam who still lives there and resisting the constant pressure to drive him out of his hearth and home.
I’ve been to The Duke... it was the very first pub I patronized when I first visited London in 1993. Seeing those images of Deptford and Greenwich really took me back... thanks.
Loved this simply to see my old stomping ground again, lived on Lewisham Way. Football amongst the Fordham Park potholes. Lucky the pub wasn’t the Marquis of Granby or Knopfler would still be stuck to the carpet.
Saw them play for free on the green area next to the Crossfields Estate. They were plugged into the electricity in one of the basement flats. Squeeze also had their first gig in the Deptford pub that kept changing its name. Next to the wall with the graffiti saying "Millwall, Max Wall, Brickwall " or some variation.
It's been known since Knopfler's 1983 bio that it was the White Swan in Greenwich High Rd, and the jazz band there in 1977 were a motley outfit of part-time muso's playing trad jazz standards, no doubts about that.
Some info re your thoughts in mentioning the Easybeats. They had been EXTREMELY popular in Australia (+ UK and USA) with songs like Friday on my mind, often considered an anthem of the working class. George Young and Harry Vanda had composed many of their songs. During and after the Easybeat years Young and Vanda also appeared as a very successful duo called Flash and the Pan. They had at least two prominent song on OZ charts...Down among the dead men and Hey Saint Peter. Interestingly these releases align with dates you mention around 76-77. The three Young Brothers and the talent from AC/DC from the mid 60's helped continue a fast developing rock scene in Australia from the late 50's.
@Frank B Flash and The Pan also had a hit in the UK with "Waitin' For A Train". And apparently Vanda and Young were the brains behind "Love Is In The Air" by John Paul Young. During the recording Harry Vanda was in the studio with "loops" of recording tape hung around his neck. I suppose as programmable digital repeat systems were not around, he used loops of tape the to lay down the repetitive rhythm backing tracks. There is a very good documentary about "Alberts Music" in Australia where Vanda and Young worked their studio magic and how AC/DC got started. Saw Harry on the tv at Malcolm Youngs' funeral and he looked very frail. But he was there to pay his respects to Malcolm.
I have always liked Flash And The Pan and still listen to them these days. Love the minimalist song "Walkin' In The Rain"! George Young is also related to the AC/DC Youngs, a cousin, IIRC.
A good informative documentary. I don't konw anything about the pubs and locations in your film, but back in the seventies there were three popular Trad jazz bands doing the pub circuit. "Bob Kerr's Whoopie band", "Dick Laurie's Elastic band" and "John Chilton Feetwarmers." These bands would often play at The half moon in Putney, a famous "South of the river" music venue.
This is one of the first songs I ever bought on iTunes probably ten years or so ago, and honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever skipped it any time it comes up in a playlist. In my top 5 songs of all time for sure.
I had always assumed that the band name was poetic/ fictional - I find it particularly poignant if the band of middle-aged geezers playing jazz in an almost empty bar in the mid-70's made _so little_ of an impression on anyone (other than Mark Knopfler, and perhaps other members of Dire Straits) that in as little as a decade they had been entirely forgotten and lost to the mists of time. :(
It sounds to me like they were just doing it because they liked to play together. After all, 'he doesn't want to make the scene. He's got a daytime job, he's doin' alright.'
'Twas one of the very first videos on a new channel on TV called "MTV" of all things, and where I was, Hawaii, we pricked our ears up at "What's that, Hawaiian noises?" never knew if it was good or bad.
We did The Black Horse round the corner from Deptford Park once. We played to the bar staff and our super fan. We're the Soulfunks. Man, I miss gigging.
I've watched many of your excellent uploads with definitive answers on historical London. This is the first one of yours in which we're unsure but gets possibly close to the truth. Maybe someone, if they haven't already, should ask Mark Knopfler.
My father listened to Dire Straits and this song, so it's no wonder I grew up to love it! What they made was really something worth praising to this day!
Funny coincidence... I watched an old episode of Brian Johnson’s (AC/DC) show called “Life on the Road” the other day on You Tube. He was interviewing Mark Knopfler. Apparently they’re both from the same town? I’m American so I don’t know all the geographical slang in England but they kept referring to each other as Geordies... Anyway, Knopfler explained this story and I believed he named the pub and/or location. Look it up, I’m sure it’ll answer a few questions. 👍🏼
@@thevoid6818: I had to Google everything you described to get a little perspective... Newcastle! Of course!!! I love the beer, and that was one hell of a stair case. Im going to take a trip to England one of these days. 👍🏼
Brain Johnson lived in Beech Drive, Dunston in Newcastle upon Tyne. Mark Knopfler was born in Glasgow and lived in Blyth, which is a town a few miles north of Newcastle. If you know the area, they have very different accents, Johnson being much stronger as he was raised in the city.
Playing guitar (badly) and a massive MK fan, I stumbled across this thread and video researching the lyrics and have to say all your comments make fascinating reading. MK tends to write (as a journalist does) what he sees, reads and manages somehow to create amazing songs and stories from the mundane and turn them into lyrically interesting songs (My Bacon Roll for example). The story continues but some of your first hand reports of life in Deptford, Greenwich and London are so intriguing as anecdotes and reality to this song. . If I ever get a chance to meet MK, I will ask him. 'Meantime', I will keep practising for a live performance of the same said song....
Nice video! Informative. Funny, I used to live in Deptford. I had no idea this song had any relation to it. The current footage used her really shows how grim Britain is.
I love trivia such as this! We may never know which pub was the one in the song, but I would hope it was the White Swan, as I've played there a few times.
Yes, the Swan is the most likely. I went there a few times in late 70s early 80s and they'd often have bands playing at the back, even on quiet evenings. The pool table was pretty much in front of the 'stage' area as I remember. Locals said they had dire straits playing a little while ago. Sadly I never saw them there, although one quiet evening we did meet one of the girls from bucks fizz in there (Cheryl), she was playing pool.
Just a thought! Playing the honkytonk refers to an atmosphere created where a slightly detuned piano would be and reminiscent of the Barbary Coast and the Old West where 'joints' were raucos, garish, noisy and tawdry, so Harry would have been the piano man in the band and it was usual to have a piano in a Dixie Swing outfit. It is not common to have a lead guitar player in a swing band (though not unheard of).
Hi just discovered your videos. Very interesting and informative, as I assume you are a architectural historical journalist? I especially like your personality that comes across as a bit ironic, deadpan, and dark humoured. I trust this is needed in your legitimate profession. Best regards to you and thanks for making me laugh!
I'm pretty sure it wasn't the Swan - I used to drink there 2 or 3 times a week at that time, along with the Princess of Wales, Three Tuns and others. It was a rock pub, not jazz. A few of us were in the Oxford Arms in Deptford with Mark when Sultans came on the radio for the first time - that was a regular muso hang out, but didn't have bands playing. Squeeze and others all used to hang around there and we used to play football on Blackheath, then gig at the Albany Empire. Great days...
Did anyone else get the songs music video played as the ad before the video? As I did, if it was deliberate it is a beautiful touch to the video. loving the videos Jago keep up the great work.
Dire Straits headlined the Crossfields Festival in 1977 supported by Squeeze, who headlined the following year. My sister's band the Convent Nuns were part of the '78 lineup along with the Fabulous Poodles among others. My sister lived on the estate for years, and we attended the festival some time in the late '80s. The stage was tiny, the bands were unknown local bands and there were hardly any people.
I think one clue is the "crowd of young boys fooling around in the corner" they are wearing platform shoes and baggies (oxford bag trousers) this was fashionable around 1970. Also the band was playing Dixieland jazz. No pub I know of in Greenwich or Deptford at that time would have a Trad Jazz band. This again (to me) points to the Greenwich Theatre. Pubs might have either a rock band or some old bugger like Bob Graves (half pissed on his free beer) singing old songs from the 40's to old guys that rolled there own cigarettes.
You could be halfway onto something here. Greenwich Theatre did have jazz on Sunday lunchtimes in the bar. Not in the evenings, when they had, er, plays, given it's a theatre. However, right next door, and within earshot of the Park gates, is the old Rose and Crown, which did sometimes have trad jazz on in the evening. On the other hand, the lyrics may well have taken a bit of poetic licence.
It's also my 20 year son's favorite song: he is known in our local music venue as 'The Sultan' . He plays lead guitar, sometimes in a band, and regularly belts out lots of Dire Straits songs: in fact he's playing 'Romeo and Juliet' in his room at he moment and started off earlier with 'So Far Away'. The neighbours look forward to his evening practice sessions! I've always been intrigued on the meaning of the lyrics, but didn't know that Dire Straits lived for a while in London: I thought that they played in the early days in Leeds. Perhaps they decided that they needed exposure in the capital.
"because an old guitar is all he can afford" is also one of the lines. So, I doubt it was George Young of The Easybeats. This is what I love about England and the English. Discussing a question to which there is no definitive answer ever likely to be forthcoming, and nobody getting worked up about it.
The park I always think of is the one on Bedford Road in Aberdeen in Scotland as it reminds me of where I lived as a child Sultans of Swing is one of the songs I have the earliest memories of, and still one of the greatest pieces of music ever recorded
So to add to this thread, I can tell you that "Guitar George" is George Borowsky. A session guitarist who I have met and run sound for a few times. A genuinely lovely chap who is definitely in the Paul McCartney school of looks and performance, and yes, he really does know all the chords. The last I saw of him was driving an old Volvo estate near Macclesfield....My favrourite song of his is Landing Lights (a pun, not like a runway but the lights at the top of the stairs) Feel free to message me if you have any questions
Wonderful, thanks for sharing. I came back from Sweden in 77 and Dire Straits were a wonderful contrast to non-stop ABBA! I only remember seeing them in North London pubs, though - Hope and Anchor springs to mind. Wonderful times for music, listening to Charlie Gillett on BBC Radio London to find who was playing where.
For some time I have equated the personalities in 'Sultans of Swing' with a couple of members of the South London Caribbean community. The laid back attitude, the mention of the day job combined with innate musical competence as well as the conversational nature of the claims (reflected in the lyrics) and the rhythm of the music reinforce this sense.
I have over the years spoken to many people who lived nearby the location in the 70s who clearly remember a band called Sultans of Swing. There were many bands in the 70s - and many who produced trees of paper promotional flyers - who have vanished from memory because they existed prior to the internet.
I used to live on cross fields estate for years late 80s early 90s and Dire straights and this song haunted the place.Many of there songs did........Very atmospheric.
It might be interesting to analyze how descriptive Mark is being in the song Wild West End and get an idea of how much artistic “license” he’s taking with the details. As an American who’s never been to London (and great fan of Marks work), those lyrics have become my idea of what the West End is like. If, however his description is off it may also say something about the Sultans of Swing.
Awesome informative little video, I love Sultans of Swing, so typical of bands starting out, desperate for a gig and would play in an empty boozer and when you are duckin into a pub outta the rain and a bands playin dixie double 4 time, it's so cool, but as soon as you go through those doors warm, rich sentimentality, keep 'em comin', goodnight, now it's time to go home ... ps have a look for 'zombie guitar' his Sultan's of Swing lesson is on here somewhere, he would probably do a slightly slowed version for you
Folk singer and Columbia recording artist Bill Wilson from Bloomington Indiana (1947-1993) claimed to have co-written the song. He and Mark were both employed as song writers at the time and he helped write the lyrics on a napkin in a pub. Bill did not get any writing credits but did receive a small amount of money, enough to by a chevy blazer. Bill was a very talented singer/song writer. Check out his album "Talking to the stars"
This was the first of your videos I ever watched and I have tried not to miss any since. Alway a great and informative watch with a couple of laughs and a groan or two. (CommentCount 675)
Love it! A wonderful mix of music history, geography, speculation and whimsy. And there you were apologising for a coming over all “psychogeoraphical” during your Pedway video. P.S. That street at 0.42. Bar on the left, train visible on the right. Where is that exactly?
There is a guy by the name of George Borowski who plays an old guitar who was/is known a Guitar George because no one can pronounce his surname. I've seen him play, he is very good, BUT he is mostly rhythm (he doesn't want to make it cry or sing)?
THANK YOU FOR YOUR SHARE These lyrics below refer to George Borowski who used to play in the Town Center of Sale, Cheshire, Many Years Ago. And George Also would play in the Salutation Pub in Manchester. He wrote the song Manchester Boy's LYRICS IN SULTANS OF SWING Check out guitar George He Knows all the chords But he's strictly rhythm He doesn't want to make it cry or sing If any old guitar is all he can afford When he gets up under the lights To play his thing.
In my youth, I slept on the couch for a number of days in the house a musical group had rented. The name of the band? "The Sultans of Swing". This would be Thousand Oaks California, circa 1974. Or maybe 1973. It's been a while...
Two things. The actual George phoned in a Radio 1 show back in the 90s, can't remember which one, but he did confirm it was him. I remember it every time I hear the song. Secondly, Vanda and Young had further success with the small group ACDC. 😅
Macclesfield street, just of Shaftesbury Avenue, haven´t been for years, was always good, and considering it´s entering China town, very good value, if you get there, an update would be nice, Cheers.
When they played " Sultans of Swing " at live aid is was mindblowing and just as electrifiing as Queen at Live Aid, Knopfler came from Newcastle ,stayed in block of flats in Deptford ,London, there is a blue Plaque on the wall, and has his studios now in West London
I still remember good times in my 20’s, going to a dive bar called The Black Swan, in Toronto. Playing cheap pool (badly) and listening to bands. Not related to the story, but it made me remember.
Passed by here so many times when I lived in deptford. who wda known? That side of the road is very cold and derelict from the dlr station up to the y junction where you have a couple pubs and takeaways.. just a place nowadays that cars drive past. Btw congrats on 50k subs I moved to London 2 years ago and found your channel sometime after it's another great way to see know the city. 👍
Well, here's a story I've been waiting 30 years to tell. I learnt the song Sultans of Swing from my French teacher, name of George Walker, who told me that he was the subject of that song. He said he met Knopfler when he came into the pub, and he and the band had a nice chat afterwards. He would have been in his 40s in the late 80s (I'm guessing), and his jazz band played occasionally at our school (in West Sussex). Yes, he was a rhythm player, and yes he knew all the chords. I think he played a sunburst Gibson 335. I don't think he was professional or ever released a record. He was a very down-to-earth bloke, and he didn't seem to be bragging when he said this story - he just mentioned it as an interesting anecdote to a keen young guitar player (i.e. me!) The teachers seemed to know this story and no one seemed to doubt it. Of course, he might have been mistaken, it might not have been Knopfler, or I might have remembered it wrong. But I've been boring the socks off people for decades now with that bit of trivia.
Not boring at all!
That is very interesting, James.
Which pub and was his band called The Sultans of Swing? If he's still alive he must be about 90?
I don't remember him ever mentioning the pub name or the band name - certainly the band I saw him play in had a different name (probably different members, as he was presumably living in Sussex - maybe Brighton? - not London). He was pretty overweight when I was at school, and I think he might have been a smoker, so I don't know whether he would still be alive now. I hope so - he was a lovely guy!
This is such an important story! Thank you so much for sharing it. There must be ways of checking it out....
Here's my Dire Straits true story. In 1987 my dad was on a train in the home counties. He got talking with an older gentleman there. They talked about the trains and the weather and compared notes about family. My dad mentioned that I was doing my A'levels, and they both agreed on the importance of education and that there are no jobs for life any more, because things aren't like they were back in their day, etc, etc. The older gentleman said he was concerned about his nephew, who he thought really ought to get a proper career instead of messing about with music. The nephew is in a band, apparently they are quite well known, my dad might even have heard of them.... Dire Straits or something like that?
My dad reassured the older gentleman his nephew would probably be ok for a few quid for now.
Uncle Kingsley, who inspired Mark with his harmonica playing, and boogie woogie on the piano?
I bought a Marshall amp from David in July 1977 while they were living at Farrar House - I still have the receipt. My recollection was that they were living on the ground floor, not the first, although this was 43 years ago. I checked the receipt this evening and it says they were at number 1, which I assume was (and probably still is) on the ground floor. There were three guys living there and the flat was littered with empty beer cans. I was just learning to play the guitar and had bought a cheap Stratocaster copy. Mark brought out a string of wonderful Gibsons and Fenders to demonstrate the amp and after hearing him play, I had to buy it. He said they were doing a gig at a pub in Deptford High Street that evening (it was a Saturday) and invited me to the gig. Unfortunately, it would have been too far to come back, so I asked the name of the band and told them I'd look out for them if they did any gigs on the other side of London. I did regret not going.
Your story about early days of Dire Straits is really interesting. What is the exact date written on the receipt? I would love to see it, would you be able to share a photo of it on some social media?
Then you got home and your playing was magically 10x better from being in Mark’s presence?
@@Bjarku sadly not.
The only known Dire Straits gig from that month (July) is the one they played at the Albany Empire in Deptford on 28th July 1977 in support of Squeeze. Do you think that's the gig they invited you to? If your receipt indicates a different day you’d have proof of a Dire Straits concert not known so far.
this channel is like when you visit a friend in an unfamiliar city who takes you on a tour and shows you the little known bits and pieces that you'd never see on a regular tour
And - just like that good friend - Jago knows just enough to make it interesting, but not so much that he drives you away (or at least has the self-control to only tell the interesting parts).
Many thanks!
Extract from Mark Knopler 1983 Dire Straits biography.
Through the spring and early summer of 1977 the songs kept coming. Wild West End’ was written about Mark’s wanderings around London; ’Southbound Again' came from memories of trips to the capital. Of ‘Sultans of Swing', Mark says: "Sultans" was written quite a long time before the band; I hadn't met John then. Dave was living somewhere down in Greenwich and we just went out to the pub - I think it was called the "Swan," something like that, in Greenwich High Road - and had a game of pool and a couple of pints. There was a jazz band playing, and there was nobody in there except us and a couple of kids in the comer.
They did a couple of requests. I asked them for "Creole Love Call", and it was great. There are loads of bands like that. They're postmen, milkmen, accountants, draughtsmen, teachers. They just get together Sunday lunchtimes, night-times, and they play trad.
And it's funny because they play this New Orleans music note for note - in Greenwich.'
John remembers that originally 'Sultans’ was very different. The lyrics were the same but the tune was completely different. 'I have the feeling that he wrote some music one day and said, Hey, I've got some great new chords for “Sultans"!'
@Doogie Carpit Burger isbn 0688025145 - still have mine I bought just after seeing them last night of the Brothers in arms tour, Sydney , April '86
@@chrisnorthall8317 was that at the Ent Cent where they did those 16 or so concerts in a row?
@@tonytravert9944 it was , not sure how many nights though, 3 or 4 at the entertainment ctr if I recall, not sure about 16 though.
@@chrisnorthall8317 hey, well I had to do some simple research since your reply and in wikipedia it shows the dates of that tour. Dire Straits scheduled that tour to end in Oceania. They did 13 concerts in a row in Melbourne in feb 1986, went to NZ for a few then returned to Sydney to do 16 concerts in a row in March 1986. I went to 2 of those concerts at the Ent Cent. It was unprecedented for a band to do that many shows all in a row which is why the last concert was televised live on Nine and simulcast on Triple M. I was on a first date that night and was somehow discretely listening to it on my car stereo as we traveled to whatever restaurant near Millers Point (shit this is bringing up memories lol) but was wishing I was at home watching that first ever Live concert simulcast, well in Australia that is. Because of the success in Sydney, and after they toured around Australia, they did another 4 shows between 23-26 April 1986,, that being the end of the tour. I'm sure I found that live concert simulcast here on You Tube.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brothers_in_Arms_Tour
Rock On!
@@chrisnorthall8317 Actually closer to 22 in Sydney on that tour! 15 in Melbourne, 10 or 12 in Brisbane, plus going to places like Townsville, Cairns, Hobart, Alice Springs, Darwin. Just amazing, never before had a tour of such a popular band been so extensive.
A former boss of mine was on long island a long time ago driving with his dad. He had to use the bathroom so they stopped at a place. My boss went to the bathroom and his dad listened to the piano man playing. When my boss came out he said "ok dad let's go". His father told him to hold on a minute because he wanted to listen to the piano man play a little bit more. The piano man turned out to be the piano man himself Billy Joel. To this day they couldn't tell you the name of the place but they still can tell you how great the guy at the piano was.
Billy Joel really was the piano man at someplace on the US East Coast, some seaside place. Humble beginnings and a reminder to work on my voice 'cos gotta do Piano Man.
I'm sure I read that the song was about a band who played in The Millers pub on Greenwich High Rd, which is just round the corner from the White Swan shown in the video. That pub lay derelict for years and was demolished about a year ago. The Knopflers' flat on Crossfields has a blue plaque outside, and the wall which had 'Love Over Gold' graffiti'd on it, and inspired their 1982 album of the same name, has also been immortalised with a mural. It's virtually next to the flat.
Yes, that is it. It was called The White Swan before being changed to Millers Music Bar.
I think what makes the song a classic, especially to musicians, is the way its a tale we all can relate. I once traveled 100 miles to do a gig in Southampton, where there were 3 people in the 'crowd'. We were a 5 piece band, so even if we added the bar man into the equation we still out numbered the audience. I ended up singing the lead vocal from a bar stool at the bar just so there were more folk watching than playing!!
Rock and roll can be a vicious game... but great fun.
My 8-piece jazz-funk band once played to two people at the Astoria in Leeds (some time around 1984/5)
I once traveled like 200 miles as a hired gun to play to like six people in the audience (including the sound guy, bartender and club manager). So yeah, definitely know what it feels like.
Music the art of putting £5000 of equipment into a £500 car driving 50 miles to play to 5 people
I can certainly relate to that.
Played in a venue described as "East Anglia's premier rock venue."
An old man with his dog and two people playing pool. The pool players actually complained that we were too loud.
The silence that greeted the end of each song was similar to that in an anechoic chamber!
Ah, fun times.
Yeah, but did you all go on to bigger and better things? There was a local club band in the North East back in the eighties who were brilliant musicians who never made it big but one of them told me they loved doing the clubs as they always got a great audience.
If you ever want to dodge youtube copyright bots on music, just slow it doen or speed it up by 5%, it's almost indistinguishable to human ears without being told, and will totally bypass the bots.
That or search for the 8 bit/midi version on youtube!
Does it matter whether or not you maintain pitch? That is to say, is the natural pitch change from speeding up/slowing down part of what makes this work?
Or a 16 bit (Mega Drive, none of than SNES nonsense) one would be even better.
But, hello, you.
Doesn’t matter, people are still rats
@@rockets4kids audacity has a tool that can decrease the speed and keep the pitch the same.
@@ChloeStandingUpstairs Oh yeah, I know how to do that, I was just curious whether you specifically wanted to disable that feature. I've read that the signature is a hash based on frequency analysis, so shifting the frequency might be what makes this work in the first place.
This video starts with the idea that it happened when they were in Deptford but David Knopfler told me that it was before Deptford, when David was sharing a flat in Greenwich and Mark came to visit him. Also John Illsley told me that he wasn't living with David when they saw the Sultans, that it was before Deptford days. I did my own research for a book, and also was mentioned in the Michael Oldfield book "Dire straits" written in cooperation with the band. David thought it could had been the White Swan but wasn't sure.
Deptford Days. There's a name for an album.
Trouble is - there were two White Swans in close proximity.......
The thing is, the lyrics go:
*_"You take a walk in the dark,_*
*_"It's rainin' in the park,_*
*_"But meantime,_*
*_"You hear a sound and you stop and you hold ev'rything..."_*
This implies that you could hear the music _while still in_ the park since he doesn't approach the door of the venue until the _end_ of that verse, so we're looking for a venue which is in earshot of the park (or at least one of the entrances to the park), so probably along an adjacent road.
Also, I think it's fair to broaden the definition of "park" to any grassy public area, rather than places which specifically have the word "park" in the name; having known many born-and-bred Saaf Landaners in my time, they tend not to limit the descriptor to the name so much as consider any place with some grass, a few trees and maybe a kiddies' playground where you could walk a dog to be a "park" in the general sense of the word.
This could therefore include somewhere as close as Mary Ann Gardens, which is a sizeable grassy area which is practically across the road from the Crossfield estate - perhaps Knopfler was strolling in a clockwise direction around the outside of the "park" and heard the music while returning along the eastern edge next to Church St to head home via Coffey St and through the churchyard? If it started raining particularly heavily as you reached the northeast corner of the gardens, even the few minutes it would take to walk home from there would seem an unpleasant prospect in comparison to a quick pint in the warm and dry, especially if the music is as good as Knopfler implies.
Knowing how many old pubs have since been repurposed or just plain demolished since 1977, especially in areas as extensively redeveloped as Deptford has been since the Docklands industrial area was cleared out and renewed in the Eighties, it's entirely possible that the venue in question has already been lost to the ages - you'd need someone well-versed in all the local drinking holes along Deptford Church St back in the day to remember where it might have stood. For all I know of the area, it's entirely possible that Mary Ann Gardens were part of the redevelopment and didn't even exist at the time... the map has changed significantly in that bit of London in particular just within my lifetime.
Also, the place does sound like it's practically dead except for the kids in the corner heckling the musicians, and there's mention in the lyrics of *_"Competition from other places,"_* which implies that the venue might well be in... well... _dire straits_ financially at the time of the gig anyway (I'm sorry, but once I realised the pun was coming it was too late to back out!) - so it's entirely possible that the pub was already closed down or sold and repurposed by the time the song was recorded and released in any case, and could've been demolished, built over and forgotten in the renewal effort since.
It's just struck me that I've probably spent more time thinking about this than you spent filming the video, so I'm going to stop over-analyzing now...! lol
Oh - and I'll make it fast - just one more thing...
I'm aware that Mark Knopfler grew up in Newcastle - not Deptford - and only moved to London later on, but it's still fair to say that after living in the Crossfield estate for a while he would likely start referring to local places as the locals would (when in Rome, after all...) so I think it's reasonable that he would refer to Mary Ann Gardens as "the park" just as everyone else around him would. I didn't mean to imply that any of the band members were dyed-in-the-wool Deptford boys, just that he would undoubtedly have started talking in the local vernacular by the time he felt comfortable enough in his surroundings to be confidently walking the area around his home alone at night... especially a park in the Docklands in the Seventies.
My goodness, you've put a lot of thought into this!
I still think it may have been the Dew Drop Inn by the park on Angus Street
@@kdisley Just for info, since you've put so much thought into this, people in the north east refer to any patch of open communal space with a few trees and some swings in it as a 'park' too. So Mark Knopfler wouldn't particularly have had to adopt that as local terminology.
@Nothing Noone Hi! Totally agree with you!!! Where did kdisley get that first lyric from??
An interesting theory and one I have to admit I have never heard of before so how about I chuck this one into the mix. As a young lad in the 1970s I used to commute to the City of London on my Motorbike from my parent's house in Erith. My journey would take me through Greenwich and Deptford along the Lower Road. As the lower road leaves Deptford it passes by many local boozers including The Cricketers, the China Hall, The Jolly Caulkers and the Prince of Orange. Now I was fascinated by the sign that seemed to be always in the window of the Prince of Orange advertising Live Jazz by their resident band "Harry Gold and his pieces of eight" . Harry Gold was quite a well know Trad Jazz artist of the 1950s but by 1972 when I started commuting Trad Jazz was pretty much dead on it's legs. However Harry and the band would certainly be "blowin' Dixie, double-four time" .The Prince of Orange is just a short walk from Southwark Park.
It's not a million miles from the Crossfield estate. The Prince is now converted into flats, The China Hall is shut, the Jolly caulkers is gone too and the cricketers is a supermarket I think.
Posted my comment before I saw this. Adds to my thoughts completely.
As a jazz pianist in the 80s, lately moved to London, I worked in Harry's band briefly, one of our gigs was at the Prince of Orange. They did great pizzas! (The pub, that is, not the band.)
The song could also be an elegy to the death of pubs, where such music could be heard. Hardly any of the boozers of my 70s youth are going concerns, and quite a few no longer exist. Some of them had stood for centuries, seen off by changing entertainment, lifestyle and work patterns, cheap supermarket ale, and the dying characters who used to patronise them.
@@borderlands6606 and the tories deregulation of breweries owning pubs, break that monopoly and create a new one of pub chains who are happy to run down and shut an redevelop on a shameful scale
Happy days in SE London
Sounds very plausible
If someone could just pass this link on to Mark Knopfler we could get an answer, surely? :-)
But then, sadly, you would know the answer ...
@@Mustafiz1972 I don't understand, I'm afraid. Why would I know the answer and why sadly?
Eric Lund Well, if Mark were to give us the answer, then we won’t have the chance to wistfully wonder about the lyrics and while away idle summer evenings in bliss ... That is all! No disrespect or offence intended, and if any has been taken, please accept the sincerest apologies!
@@Mustafiz1972 No offence was taken at any time. I just didn't understand!
could it be that he himself doesn't know the answer? He's at the local park at dusk and it begins to rain so he hurries home toward the estate and the rain begins to get heavier, he ducks into the nearest pub for shelter (he doesn't bother looking at the name as he only want's it for protection) and there he discovers the band.
it stays in his memory and he eventually wrote the song about it but it had an almost mystical quality by this time in his mind and perhaps he misremembers certain details
Another classic, my Jago friend. Completely hooked on the channel now. Love this angle too as I'm also a huge fan of the Sultans of Swing. Please keep up the great work.
I was at Goldsmiths College in the early 90s and my halls of residence was next to The Duke in Deptford and I used to drink in there all the time. The landlord Eric had been running the pub since the 70s. He was a real character and he told me once that Dire Straits used to use one of the upstairs rooms to rehearse. Some time around 1978 they woke him up in the early hours of the morning as they needed to collect some equipment. He was annoyed at being woken and threw them out and told them never to come back as they were a bunch of losers that would never amount to anything. In his own words, "Sultans of Swing came out a few months later."!! There was also a gold disc behind the bar for the single "Only You" by the Flying pickets and apparently Squeeze used to play in there. The area was a hive of creativity....I used to drink in another pub around the corner where Jools Holland would be almost every night....and some of the cast of the original Vic Reeves TV series!! (This is all as best as I remember - it was a long time ago so hopefully my memory has served me correctly!!). Not exactly related...but this video popped up next to one of my own videos of me playing the Sultans solo on Ukulele - I'm playing it on banjo too if you want to see it on my channel!!
I was there with you Tom, in the Duke on Creek Road . . .
Rac Mac!
As an aussie I love that you mentioned The Easybeats :)
Sadly didn't mention an aside about George Young's more famous younger brother.
George Young was the older brother of Angus and Malcolm from AC/DC and a huge influence on them. Whether it's true or not I like the idea of Sultans of Swing being written about him.
Thanks Jago! This song is the anthem of all the amazing guitarists we see in pubs and wonder how come they didn't hit the big time. I don't think Knoppfler thought of them as a 'mediocre' band (Harry could play the Honky Tonk like anything). It's also important for beginner musicians, as this is the kind of stage life they can reasonably expect, given the amount of high quality competition out there. Knoppfler made it to the very top, but in those early days he might have composed this as a personal pep-talk!
The Sultans of Swing referred to Harry Vanda and George Young (yes related to Malcolm and Angus). Vanda and Young were singer songwriters who were original member of the Australian band The Easybeats. A band that went off to England in the sixties and paved the way for other Aussie bands. They were an unsophisticated band but had enormous talent. If you listen to the words he mentions them by name. The song pays homage to their abilities without expensive guitars and equipment. Vanda and Young went on to form a band called Flash 'n' the Pan and released a few hits, my favourite being "Down among the Dead Men".
Rubbish
Time to reopen that pub as a music pub, and rename it "The Swing", and hence force history to fit your theory. :-)
Renaming it "sultans of swan" would be legendary
Absolutely love it! By that I mean your video, as well as the song.
I am pleased you are guided by evidence, and not rumour or wishfulness. I am pleased you were able to make a video featuring Deptford (an area I am fond of). I am also pleased you made a video about such a wonderful song ("Harry doesn't mind if he doesn't make the scene, he's got a daytime job, he's doing alright!") with a stellar guitar solo at the end (Knopfler's not a bad guitarist really).
Wonderful!
Try the White Swan, 85 & 87 Greenwich High Road, Greenwich SE10. Closed 2007 (The Millers) now demolished. The small LESC building seen in old photos next to The White Swan, is still there. Greenwich "mean time", "its raining in the park" Greenwich Park. Not to be confused with The White Swan in Blackheath Road (closed), next to Greenwich Magistrates Court.
A long time ago I remember reading in Guitar Player Magazine that the "George" referred to in the song (check out George, he knows all the chords) refers to "George Van Eps", he mostly used the middle four strings on a seven string guitar but he "knows all the chords" as the song says. This information might have come from a Guitar Player interview of Mark Knopler in the early 1980s. On youtube check out George Van Eps playing "I've Got a Crush on You" and you can hear the very strong influence on Marks playing style.
@blue heeler George Harrison and the others you mention are nowhere near in the same league as Knopler and Van Eps.
@blue heeler The "swing" era he's referring to spanned from about 1930 to 1950 so it pre-dated modern guitar pop music. Please go and listen so George Van Eps videos, he's a unique guitar stylist who also wrote a 1,200 page book (3 volumes) called "Harmonic Mechanisms for Guitar".
Back in the late 90s, Q magazine had an article on the supposed "Guitar George" and that guy was called George Borowski, who released an album called "The Bait" in 1989.
@@soepil Listening to George Borowski makes me doubt that he had anything to teach Mark.
ua-cam.com/video/IftE7XKdoKc/v-deo.html
About 30 years or so ago, I played in a band at the Swan in Blackheath. We were told then that Sultans of swing was written about that pub.
Incidentally, it was a bit if a dump then, and doesn't look much different now!
The pub rock scene in London was a truly fantastic period. I just like the title...Sultans of Swing, it’s fabulous 👌
Used to drink inthe White Swan from time to time It was a heavy metal pub in the early eighties Nice evocative video. Thanks.
Deptford produced the Chords, Dire Straits, Squeeze, Gary Oldman to name a few and if you believe the very compelling evidence, the man behind a lot of what we are told is Shakespeare but several of his works are forensically identical to Christopher Marlowe's work. Sadly Deptford also had a reputation for naughty no no's being a dockside town and a common haunt for "mollys" such as Marlowe with houses of sordid repute operating outside of the then crowns beady eye in London proper. Can I wave to my old friend and Deptfordian Gary Dignam who still lives there and resisting the constant pressure to drive him out of his hearth and home.
We shouldnt forget Carter USM for the lovely song 'the only living boy in new cross'
Gary Oldman's a New Cross boy as it goes.
Didn't WS ghostwrite for Marlowe?
Lewisham as a borough is a madly underrated part of London... No one knows how to get here and we won't tell them 🤣
And there was me thinking the song was all about Dire straits talking about themselves
I’ve been to The Duke... it was the very first pub I patronized when I first visited London in 1993. Seeing those images of Deptford and Greenwich really took me back... thanks.
It evokes images of an era almost long gone
Live music in old pubs seems to be dying everywhere as we head toward another 'dark ages'...
Loved this simply to see my old stomping ground again, lived on Lewisham Way. Football amongst the Fordham Park potholes. Lucky the pub wasn’t the Marquis of Granby or Knopfler would still be stuck to the carpet.
Saw them play for free on the green area next to the Crossfields Estate. They were plugged into the electricity in one of the basement flats. Squeeze also had their first gig in the Deptford pub that kept changing its name. Next to the wall with the graffiti saying "Millwall, Max Wall, Brickwall " or some variation.
It's been known since Knopfler's 1983 bio that it was the White Swan in Greenwich High Rd, and the jazz band there in 1977 were a motley outfit of part-time muso's playing trad jazz standards, no doubts about that.
Some info re your thoughts in mentioning the Easybeats. They had been EXTREMELY popular in Australia (+ UK and USA) with songs like Friday on my mind, often considered an anthem of the working class. George Young and Harry Vanda had composed many of their songs. During and after the Easybeat years Young and Vanda also appeared as a very successful duo called Flash and the Pan. They had at least two prominent song on OZ charts...Down among the dead men and Hey Saint Peter. Interestingly these releases align with dates you mention around 76-77. The three Young Brothers and the talent from AC/DC from the mid 60's helped continue a fast developing rock scene in Australia from the late 50's.
@Frank B Flash and The Pan also had a hit in the UK with "Waitin' For A Train". And apparently Vanda and Young were the brains behind "Love Is In The Air" by John Paul Young. During the recording Harry Vanda was in the studio with "loops" of recording tape hung around his neck. I suppose as programmable digital repeat systems were not around, he used loops of tape the to lay down the repetitive rhythm backing tracks. There is a very good documentary about "Alberts Music" in Australia where Vanda and Young worked their studio magic and how AC/DC got started. Saw Harry on the tv at Malcolm Youngs' funeral and he looked very frail. But he was there to pay his respects to Malcolm.
I have always liked Flash And The Pan and still listen to them these days. Love the minimalist song "Walkin' In The Rain"! George Young is also related to the AC/DC Youngs, a cousin, IIRC.
A good informative documentary. I don't konw anything about the pubs and locations in your film, but back in the seventies there were three popular Trad jazz bands doing the pub circuit. "Bob Kerr's Whoopie band", "Dick Laurie's Elastic band" and "John Chilton Feetwarmers." These bands would often play at The half moon in Putney, a famous "South of the river" music venue.
This is one of the first songs I ever bought on iTunes probably ten years or so ago, and honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever skipped it any time it comes up in a playlist. In my top 5 songs of all time for sure.
This was fascinating and made me go back and really listen to this song like I hadn’t before. Well done. sub.
I had always assumed that the band name was poetic/ fictional - I find it particularly poignant if the band of middle-aged geezers playing jazz in an almost empty bar in the mid-70's made _so little_ of an impression on anyone (other than Mark Knopfler, and perhaps other members of Dire Straits) that in as little as a decade they had been entirely forgotten and lost to the mists of time. :(
It sounds to me like they were just doing it because they liked to play together. After all, 'he doesn't want to make the scene. He's got a daytime job, he's doin' alright.'
A lot of boring people are great musicians
Funny that their other big famous song is also something overheard, as it were - Money For Nothing.
'Twas one of the very first videos on a new channel on TV called "MTV" of all things, and where I was, Hawaii, we pricked our ears up at "What's that, Hawaiian noises?" never knew if it was good or bad.
@@alexcarter8807
I was in Okinawa when I heard Money for Nothing
amusing title
We did The Black Horse round the corner from Deptford Park once. We played to the bar staff and our super fan. We're the Soulfunks.
Man, I miss gigging.
I've watched many of your excellent uploads with definitive answers on historical London. This is the first one of yours in which we're unsure but gets possibly close to the truth. Maybe someone, if they haven't already, should ask Mark Knopfler.
My father listened to Dire Straits and this song, so it's no wonder I grew up to love it! What they made was really something worth praising to this day!
Funny coincidence... I watched an old episode of Brian Johnson’s (AC/DC) show called “Life on the Road” the other day on You Tube. He was interviewing Mark Knopfler. Apparently they’re both from the same town? I’m American so I don’t know all the geographical slang in England but they kept referring to each other as Geordies... Anyway, Knopfler explained this story and I believed he named the pub and/or location. Look it up, I’m sure it’ll answer a few questions. 👍🏼
@@thevoid6818:
I had to Google everything you described to get a little perspective... Newcastle! Of course!!! I love the beer, and that was one hell of a stair case. Im going to take a trip to England one of these days. 👍🏼
Brain Johnson lived in Beech Drive, Dunston in Newcastle upon Tyne. Mark Knopfler was born in Glasgow and lived in Blyth, which is a town a few miles north of Newcastle. If you know the area, they have very different accents, Johnson being much stronger as he was raised in the city.
Another awesome thought inspiring vid from you Jago..well done..😊
Playing guitar (badly) and a massive MK fan, I stumbled across this thread and video researching the lyrics and have to say all your comments make fascinating reading. MK tends to write (as a journalist does) what he sees, reads and manages somehow to create amazing songs and stories from the mundane and turn them into lyrically interesting songs (My Bacon Roll for example). The story continues but some of your first hand reports of life in Deptford, Greenwich and London are so intriguing as anecdotes and reality to this song. . If I ever get a chance to meet MK, I will ask him. 'Meantime', I will keep practising for a live performance of the same said song....
Nice video! Informative. Funny, I used to live in Deptford. I had no idea this song had any relation to it. The current footage used her really shows how grim Britain is.
I love trivia such as this!
We may never know which pub was the one in the song, but I would hope it was the White Swan, as I've played there a few times.
Yes, the Swan is the most likely. I went there a few times in late 70s early 80s and they'd often have bands playing at the back, even on quiet evenings. The pool table was pretty much in front of the 'stage' area as I remember. Locals said they had dire straits playing a little while ago. Sadly I never saw them there, although one quiet evening we did meet one of the girls from bucks fizz in there (Cheryl), she was playing pool.
“... he says pretentiously” LOL
Was he referring to "The Wasteland" I wonder?
Just a thought! Playing the honkytonk refers to an atmosphere created where a slightly detuned piano would be and reminiscent of the Barbary Coast and the Old West where 'joints' were raucos, garish, noisy and tawdry, so Harry would have been the piano man in the band and it was usual to have a piano in a Dixie Swing outfit. It is not common to have a lead guitar player in a swing band (though not unheard of).
My favourite band!
I have often pondered this very point. Love the video.
Hi just discovered your videos. Very interesting and informative, as I assume you are a architectural historical journalist? I especially like your personality that comes across as a bit ironic, deadpan, and dark humoured. I trust this is needed in your legitimate profession. Best regards to you and thanks for making me laugh!
I thank you! I’m afraid I’m just an enthusiastic amateur.
I'm pretty sure it wasn't the Swan - I used to drink there 2 or 3 times a week at that time, along with the Princess of Wales, Three Tuns and others. It was a rock pub, not jazz. A few of us were in the Oxford Arms in Deptford with Mark when Sultans came on the radio for the first time - that was a regular muso hang out, but didn't have bands playing. Squeeze and others all used to hang around there and we used to play football on Blackheath, then gig at the Albany Empire. Great days...
@@toxtethogrady6334 yep - the furniture was my friend Tom's...
Did anyone else get the songs music video played as the ad before the video? As I did, if it was deliberate it is a beautiful touch to the video.
loving the videos Jago keep up the great work.
Dire Straits headlined the Crossfields Festival in 1977 supported by Squeeze, who headlined the following year. My sister's band the Convent Nuns were part of the '78 lineup along with the Fabulous Poodles among others. My sister lived on the estate for years, and we attended the festival some time in the late '80s. The stage was tiny, the bands were unknown local bands and there were hardly any people.
Was it possible for young single men to get council flats in London in the 1970's?
I think one clue is the "crowd of young boys fooling around in the corner" they are wearing platform shoes and baggies (oxford bag trousers) this was fashionable around 1970. Also the band was playing Dixieland jazz.
No pub I know of in Greenwich or Deptford at that time would have a Trad Jazz band. This again (to me) points to the Greenwich Theatre. Pubs might have either a rock band or some old bugger like Bob Graves (half pissed on his free beer) singing old songs from the 40's to old guys that rolled there own cigarettes.
You could be halfway onto something here. Greenwich Theatre did have jazz on Sunday lunchtimes in the bar. Not in the evenings, when they had, er, plays, given it's a theatre. However, right next door, and within earshot of the Park gates, is the old Rose and Crown, which did sometimes have trad jazz on in the evening. On the other hand, the lyrics may well have taken a bit of poetic licence.
I have not listened to the song in years, but it immediately started playing in my head. It was even in perfect D minor.
That's VERY interesting. Sultans was always 1 of MY fave Straits song as well!
One of my favourite songs ever (especially the version on Alchemy!)
Great detective work!
It's also my 20 year son's favorite song: he is known in our local music venue as 'The Sultan' . He plays lead guitar, sometimes in a band, and regularly belts out lots of Dire Straits songs: in fact he's playing 'Romeo and Juliet' in his room at he moment and started off earlier with 'So Far Away'. The neighbours look forward to his evening practice sessions!
I've always been intrigued on the meaning of the lyrics, but didn't know that Dire Straits lived for a while in London: I thought that they played in the early days in Leeds. Perhaps they decided that they needed exposure in the capital.
That was brilliant - I'm a Dire Straits fan too and enjoy a good Sherlock Holmes clues elimination.
"because an old guitar is all he can afford" is also one of the lines. So, I doubt it was George Young of The Easybeats. This is what I love about England and the English. Discussing a question to which there is no definitive answer ever likely to be forthcoming, and nobody getting worked up about it.
These days an old guitar is exactly what a musician CANNOT afford.
See my recent comment. He is real and is a very nice gent named George Borowsky
The park I always think of is the one on Bedford Road in Aberdeen in Scotland as it reminds me of where I lived as a child
Sultans of Swing is one of the songs I have the earliest memories of, and still one of the greatest pieces of music ever recorded
I have tried this with a few songs and locations.
Must say you skill at following it up is fantastic.
One of my all time favourite tracks. Loved that.
You bid us goodnight, but then I was kinda expecting you to make it fast with one more thing ;)
Great video, thank you for your musings. Perhaps the appliance store in NYC could be a future visit :) ?
So to add to this thread, I can tell you that "Guitar George" is George Borowsky. A session guitarist who I have met and run sound for a few times. A genuinely lovely chap who is definitely in the Paul McCartney school of looks and performance, and yes, he really does know all the chords. The last I saw of him was driving an old Volvo estate near Macclesfield....My favrourite song of his is Landing Lights (a pun, not like a runway but the lights at the top of the stairs) Feel free to message me if you have any questions
I immediately thought of the Greenwich connection, as I had the lyrics of "Single handed sailor " going through my head!
Wonderful, thanks for sharing. I came back from Sweden in 77 and Dire Straits were a wonderful contrast to non-stop ABBA! I only remember seeing them in North London pubs, though - Hope and Anchor springs to mind.
Wonderful times for music, listening to Charlie Gillett on BBC Radio London to find who was playing where.
Very well researched and analysed
pure speculation, though really nicely thought out. Thank- you Sir. I subscribed to you, on this video alone
For some time I have equated the personalities in 'Sultans of Swing' with a couple of members of the South London Caribbean community. The laid back attitude, the mention of the day job combined with innate musical competence as well as the conversational nature of the claims (reflected in the lyrics) and the rhythm of the music reinforce this sense.
I have over the years spoken to many people who lived nearby the location in the 70s who clearly remember a band called Sultans of Swing. There were many bands in the 70s - and many who produced trees of paper promotional flyers - who have vanished from memory because they existed prior to the internet.
I used to live on cross fields estate for years late 80s early 90s and Dire straights and this song haunted the place.Many of there songs did........Very atmospheric.
It might be interesting to analyze how descriptive Mark is being in the song Wild West End and get an idea of how much artistic “license” he’s taking with the details. As an American who’s never been to London (and great fan of Marks work), those lyrics have become my idea of what the West End is like. If, however his description is off it may also say something about the Sultans of Swing.
And of his love for the “Spanish city” which is my hometown Whitley bay, a place mark loved and hung around so much
Awesome informative little video, I love Sultans of Swing, so typical of bands starting out, desperate for a gig and would play in an empty boozer and when you are duckin into a pub outta the rain and a bands playin dixie double 4 time, it's so cool, but as soon as you go through those doors warm, rich sentimentality, keep 'em comin', goodnight, now it's time to go home ... ps have a look for 'zombie guitar' his Sultan's of Swing lesson is on here somewhere, he would probably do a slightly slowed version for you
Folk singer and Columbia recording artist Bill Wilson from Bloomington Indiana (1947-1993) claimed to have co-written the song. He and Mark were both employed as song writers at the time and he helped write the lyrics on a napkin in a pub. Bill did not get any writing credits but did receive a small amount of money, enough to by a chevy blazer. Bill was a very talented singer/song writer. Check out his album "Talking to the stars"
KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK
Too funny.... this song was streaming at work tonight... takes me back to army basic training early ‘79
The last phrase deserves a like hahaha, very good video
I can still remember the first time I heard this song, in the back room of the Prince in Moseley.
The Prince of Wales? One of my top pubs. Fond memories of that place.
@@chrisamies2141 There are pubs and there is the Prince. ( ᐛ )و
This was the first of your videos I ever watched and I have tried not to miss any since.
Alway a great and informative watch with a couple of laughs and a groan or two.
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that was a lovely video, please make more
Thanks for all the great street scenes of London! Another rock'n'roll mystery! "I buried Paul....."
Garrison Keillor's first band was called the Sultans of Swing, but, as they were in Minnesota, it's probably just a coincidence.
Love it! A wonderful mix of music history, geography, speculation and whimsy. And there you were apologising for a coming over all “psychogeoraphical” during your Pedway video. P.S. That street at 0.42. Bar on the left, train visible on the right. Where is that exactly?
Thanks! That is in Deptford, the street leading away from the creek (I think Deal’s Gateway?).
Jago Hazzard A bit of detective work and I found it (despite your “Deal’s Gateway” red-herring😉) It was Creekside.
@@jacekszulecki8888 My apologies, it’s been a while since I’ve been down there.
@@JagoHazzard ABSOLUTELY nothing to apologise about. It's a street mame, not a medical diagnosis😄 Keep up the great work.👍
There is a guy by the name of George Borowski who plays an old guitar who was/is known a Guitar George because no one can pronounce his surname. I've seen him play, he is very good, BUT he is mostly rhythm (he doesn't want to make it cry or sing)?
THANK YOU FOR YOUR SHARE
These lyrics below refer
to George Borowski who used to play in the Town Center of Sale, Cheshire, Many Years Ago.
And George Also would play in the Salutation Pub in Manchester.
He wrote the song
Manchester Boy's
LYRICS IN SULTANS OF SWING
Check out guitar George
He Knows all the chords
But he's strictly rhythm
He doesn't want to make it
cry or sing
If any old guitar is all he can afford
When he gets up under the lights
To play his thing.
Love it. Now I have to go listen to that great song...
In my youth, I slept on the couch for a number of days in the house a musical group had rented. The name of the band? "The Sultans of Swing". This would be Thousand Oaks California, circa 1974. Or maybe 1973. It's been a while...
Two things. The actual George phoned in a Radio 1 show back in the 90s, can't remember which one, but he did confirm it was him. I remember it every time I hear the song. Secondly, Vanda and Young had further success with the small group ACDC. 😅
Vanda and Young and massive in Australia as songwriters and producers. They were in the first intake into the Australian Music Hall of Fame.
@@iqweaver Harry Vanda and George Young were also famous as Flash and the Pan. Wasn’t it George’s brother Angus who was in AC/DC ?
@@stevegriffith1474 George was the older brother of both Angus and Malcolm
Utterly, utterly splendid.
Love the vid!
I’ve tried to find Lee Ho Fooks Chinese restaurant (werewolves of London) many many times
Macclesfield street, just of Shaftesbury Avenue, haven´t been for years, was always good, and considering it´s entering China town, very good value, if you get there, an update would be nice, Cheers.
"I saw a werewolf drinking a piña colada at Trader Vic's", bottom of The Hilton in Park Lane
@@davehagi9883 Round the corner from Macclesfield St on Gerrard St, Led Zeppelin did their very first rehearsal together in August 1968.
@@henryg3146 Ah! Gerrard St, great memories, also where Ronnie Scott´s kicked off.
Greenwich Theatre used to have jazz bands in the lower floor bar on Sundays, I often wondered if it was there.
Only lunchtime/afternoon sessions though, in the bar. Which is distinctly *not* a pub. The Rose and Crown next door is a better bet.
When they played " Sultans of Swing " at live aid is was mindblowing and just as electrifiing as Queen at Live Aid, Knopfler came from Newcastle ,stayed in block of flats in Deptford ,London, there is a blue Plaque on the wall, and has his studios now in West London
I still remember good times in my 20’s, going to a dive bar called The Black Swan, in Toronto. Playing cheap pool (badly) and listening to bands. Not related to the story, but it made me remember.
You can occasionally see a trio of guys in their 70s busking dixieland jazz outside the Waterstone's in Greenwich. Wonder if it's them...?
When you mentioned Scottish guitarist George Young of the Easy Beats who was also brother of Angus and Malcom Young of AC/DC
All born in Scotland
@@harry9392 Grew up and schooled in Australia. Started their bands over here! I'm Aussie with Scottish heritage so not nit picking, we can share them.
Harry Vanda and George Young were also AC/DC`s producers for many of the band`s classic 1970s albums.George was virtually the sixth member of AC/DC.
@@jimsavage379 I had the pleasure of seeing AC/DC in 79 in Belfast one of the last concerts Bonn Scott fronted the band,
@@harry9392 Ive seen the band 17 times.Never with Bon,but they sure do put on a show!
Passed by here so many times when I lived in deptford. who wda known? That side of the road is very cold and derelict from the dlr station up to the y junction where you have a couple pubs and takeaways.. just a place nowadays that cars drive past. Btw congrats on 50k subs I moved to London 2 years ago and found your channel sometime after it's another great way to see know the city. 👍
I first heard this wonderful song on the Charlie Gillet show on Radio London. 1978? Was it the demo?
Thanks for the excellent video.