In a moment of nostalgia, I downloaded Dire Straits’ Making Movies album from1980 last week and it assisted in enjoying a heady weekend at the cottage. It seems only right that I should share some of it with you, so here’s 8 minutes of the remarkable Tunnel of Love, from an age when music videos were… well… less important than they are now.
Got to love the lights coming up on the faces of the band (0:29), revealing Mark Knopfler as some sort of rough looking Geordie version of John Travolta. And the recurring girl in the outfit fashioned (and I use the word loosely) from the contents of her Mum’s kitchen drawer – tin foil and cling wrap – is pretty special too.
Incidentally, the “Spanish City” referred to in the song:
And girl it looks so pretty to me,
Just like it always did.
Like the Spanish City to me,
When we were kids.
is not Madrid or Barcelona, but the Spanish City Amusement Park in Whitley Bay, Tyneside. Now we know.
I would have shared the video for my favourite track on the album (and possibly my favourite track by the band), Hand in Hand, but it was never released and never got a video. Still – you can have a listen to it and look at the completely unremarkable album cover for 5 minutes if you wish. Just click here.