Forgotten series: Dire Straits, "Brothers in Arms" (1985)

NICK DERISO: Known now (unfortunately) for its jokey songs – that MTV staple “Money for Nothing” and the silly baseball-park ditty “Walk of Life” – Dire Strait’s “Brothers in Arms” wouldn't perhaps seem like a top candidate for inclusion in the DaSlob's Forgotten series.

Except that it features two of the more distinctive songs focusing on the conflict in Vietnam.

The title track, which lacks any of the bravado you might expect, is instead a meditation on suffering --- in battle and afterward. It resonates now as much as it ever did, with America sorting through a frighteningly similar conflict in a far away place.

“So many different worlds,” Mark Knopfler laments, even as he offers one of his most touching and specific cries of lament on guitar.

Importantly, however, he seems to make a distinction between protesting the war and supporting the troops: “We are fools,” Knopfler sings, “to make war on our brothers in arms.”

It’s a different kind of protest song, without the staccato spit of Dylan or the fiery bellow of Springsteen, and a large part of why “Brothers in Arms” is so underrated.

Knopfler later examines “this killing game” in “Ride Across the River” with atmospheric majesty, allowing his lyrical playing to sit amongst delicate keyboard flourishes and solitary trumpet accompaniment.

That lonely sound connects the sadness found in old anger, and in so doing gave us – finally – another way to think about anti-war songs in general, and Vietnam protest songs in particular.

Knopfler’s playing is expansive, yet particular. Again stretching out into jazz innovation, he widens these tunes’ perspective - and, similarly, our own.

Even on what at first seems like a simpler song about love-gone-wrong, “Your Latest Trick,” Knopfler and Dire Straits sound nothing like the hits that are so closely associated with this album.

And in the end, this song feels – within the larger concept – like another swipe at political leaders with their own wartime agendas.

“I don’t know how it happened, it all took place so quick,” Knopfler sings. “All I can do is hand it to you and your latest trick.”

Buy it for those long-ago Top 40 tunes, as well as the pretty “So Far Away,” but stick around for the rest. There is, tucked away on “Brothers in Arms,” a staggering depth.

Nick's notes: "Brothers in Arms" was, I believe, the first ever all-digital recording. ... Drummer Omar Hakim, who was already an important influence in shaping Peter Gabriel's mid-1980s sound, appears as a sideman. ... If you have grown weary of the radio hits, never fear, they are bunched in order at the beginning of the album.



Purchase: Dire Straits - Brothers in Arms