Love Song Extraordinaire: "Romeo and Juliet" | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's note: I have initiated this new segment on BCN, where I determine the Best Music Ever. I do this from my opinion, for what that is worth, where I will measure the best music that I am familiar with.

    I do this for two reasons: 1) I want to expose the best music that I know to the rest of us. 2) Popular Music today may be the very worst it has ever been, and that is saying much, since I lived through Disco.

    For a list of the contributions to this series, please click here.


    Mark Knopfler and Dire Straits holds a special place in my musical heart for many reasons; not least of which, Dire Straits, led by the Knopfler brothers, came onto the musical scene with their first album, Dire Straits, 1978, at the height of the dreaded Disco craze. Dire Straits, along with Steely Dan, who also was new on the Music scene became new music that sustained me during those musically insubstantial times of dance music, men with heavily styled hair, and narcotics as a party tool. Fortunately, I missed all that.
A current day Mark Knopfler play his 1937 Resonator, with his capo on the 3rd fret, all of which he uses to play his trademark love song - "Romeo and Juliet.

    Two years later, Dire Straits made another classic album, Making Movies, with the classic Romeo and Juliet, which I providing a link here to a more symphonic version of the tune, as its signature love song, and 35 years later, it has few equals, outside of the ones I mention here on BCN. Fortunately, I did not miss out on any of that.

Romeo And Juliet from, possibly, from A Night in London



Romeo And Juliet

          by Mark Knopfler

A lovestruck Romeo sings the streets a serenade
Laying everybody low with a love song that he made
Finds a streetlight steps out of the shade
Says something like you and me babe how about it?

Juliet says hey it's Romeo you nearly gimme me a heart attack
He's underneath the window she's singing hey la my boyfriend's back
You shouldn't come around here singing up at people like that
Anyway what you gonna do about it?

Juliet the dice were loaded from the start
And I bet and you exploded in my heart
And I forget I forget the movie song
When you gonna realize it was just that the time was wrong, Juliet?

Come up on different streets they both were streets of shame
Both dirty both mean yes and the dream was just the same
And I dreamed your dream for you and now your dream is real
How can you look at me as if I was just another one of your deals?

Well you can fall for chains of silver you can fall for chains of gold
You can fall for pretty strangers and the promises they hold
You promised me everything you promised me thick and thin, yeah
Now you just say oh Romeo yeah you know I used to have a scene with him

Juliet when we made love you used to cry
You said I love you like the stars above I'll love you till I die
There's a place for us you know the movie song
When you gonna realize it was just that the time was wrong Juliet?

I can't do the talk like they talk on TV
And I can't do a love song like the way it's meant to be
I can't do everything but I'd do anything for you
I can't do anything except be in love with you

And all I do is miss you and the way we used to be
All I do is keep the beat and bad company
All I do is kiss you through the bars of a rhyme
Julie I'd do the stars with you any time

Juliet when we made love you used to cry
You said I love you like the stars above I'll love you till I die
There's a place for us you know the movie song
When you gonna realize it was just that the time was wrong Juliet?

A lovestruck Romeo sings the streets a serenade
Laying everybody low with a love song that he made
Finds a convenient streetlight steps out of the shade
Says something like you and me babe how about it?


Mark Knopfler showing a few licks on his trademark 1937 Resonator and then flow into a shortened version of Romeo and Juliet: Below.

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Comments

( October 14th, 2015 @ 9:52 am )
 
You'll never see Mark destroy his guitar on stage, and you'll never see Pete Townshend ever play close to what we have in Mark Knopfler.
( October 14th, 2015 @ 9:33 am )
 
That's a great clip.
There is a vast difference between technical competence and mastery. It starts with hours of practice and honed by love of the instrument. Did you notice the kiss at the end of the second clip by Mark? The Resonator deserves that respect, it served him well through the years
Lindsey and Mark both have the love and the mastery down pat.
( October 14th, 2015 @ 8:49 am )
 
It is a cool style. As a novice, I am using 4 fingers and strumming with my thumb on that rare occasion. My son-in-law swears he is going to learn Buckingham's "Big Love" by Christmas.

Check this out version of "Big Love"; Buckingham leaves nothing on the stage: beaufortcountynow.com
( October 14th, 2015 @ 6:30 am )
 
Mark uses the same style is Lindsey Buckingham with the three fingerpicking arrange without a pick.That's not exactly fingerpicking but it is guitar playing at its best. Lindsay in an interview one time said that he learned his guitar style from listening to the Kingston trio and tried to imitate the five string banjo.

Romeo and Juliet is a great love song made better by his national style / dobro picking in open "G" tuning. Mark play is so smooth that is looks easy. It ain't. And who cannot relate to "When you gonna realize it was just that the time was wrong ----Juliet"? Nothing in this life is 'till I die', except possibly the elusive JULIET.

Of course, their big hit "SoS" is one of the all-time best rock songs and like you said a welcome diversion from disco.



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