A Mark In Time
Mark Knopfler Discussion => Mark Knopfler Discussion Forum => Topic started by: Love Expresso on October 08, 2013, 10:23:13 PM
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it isn
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English isn't my native tounge, but "a ways to go", doesn't that mean that it's far away? I just posted in the other thread with the interview, Mark said that BtT was about Parker. I always thought it was more from Elvis perspective?
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"it's a wayS to go..." is a way of saying we/I still have a long way yet to travel to get to our destination.
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"Just not ringing true" = even Elvis knows that these films are shit. But he can't just let go of all the fame and fortune and go back to being a "nobody" (like MK has?)
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I think MK said it was about Elvis's frustration at not getting serious acting roles. He was fed up with shit films and wanted to be taken seriously like Marlon Brando. The music alone was not enough for him.
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it isn
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Hey folks, thanks so far! Please let the good ideas/interpretations coming! :wave
LE
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Thanks LE for bringing this up!
My reading corrispondes a bit to the interpretation of Lis, although i wouldn't speak of MK but of an external view. But i also think that for the ambiguity of the song it is very important that one doesn't exactly know who is speaking. The whole lyrics can be read as "someone (MK?) is talking to the "idea of Elvis" in 1967". Some phrases (e.g.You'll soon be back in memphis/ Maybe then you'll know what to do / The story-lines they're giving you / Are just not ringing true) could be even spoken by Elvis to himself, and some other phrases (not so many) could be spoken by the Colonel (e.g. It isn't just the records / No, you must have Hollywood / The songs alone are not enough /That much is understood).
Due to this fact there is no perfect solution. As a listener you don't simply know for sure if the perspectives are changing or not. In the first verse we know at least that someone else is speaking to "Elvis" (you an the lying dutchman). That is why i go with Lis.
Listening to the lyrics i always think about how difficult it is to live your life, how you would like to, an stick to your ideals. It is for me very important to look back to youth, where you were able to express your ideals and your dreams without compromises, and without the reality of everydays living that forces you sometimes to do something that doesn't go with your true ideals. This memory of your pure ideals in the past helps to correct decisions that you make now.
In the first line MK is talking about clambake. It is well known that this film / period is a late turning point for Elvis. He wants from then on to play only in serious films, he is suddenly interested in religion and starts reading (which the colonel didn't want to), so he is looking for something, for true values (The story-lines they're giving you / Are just not ringing true). Around this time he recorded "How great throu art", suprisingly a gospel based album. So Elvis tries to go back to his youth in Tupelo, where he gets to know the gospels. BUT: It is easier to be the king of rock n' roll and to be a movie star then to go back to your roots and your ideals: it's a ways to go back to tupelo.
sorry for long post
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As I said before, great response by all. But Yontwocrows, you exactly got my problem and your post is very enlightening for me. I had some of the same
ideas but was not sure if they are going or not. So now we are two aleady and that tells me I am not totally wrong in my interpretation of this song.
And your post has the excact lenghts, no querie left! Thank youhuuu!
LE
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This is from an interview with MK
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Hi everyone! New poster/longtime lurker here! Interesting thread - just had to add my 2 cents worth - I like Yontwocrows interpretation and would just add that there seems to be a personal meaning for MK as well. He seems to empathize with Elvis's struggles with fame and getting caught up in "celebrity" and moving further and further from one's roots. Dire Straits after BIA was a whole different animal than the original 4-piece group. They were performing in stadiums in front of 50,000 people, and the whole production had ballooned as well. MK didn't have movies, but he had MTV and that whole circus. He must have longed to return to his roots - back to Tupelo if you will. How many times has he said "making your fortune is great, but you can have your fame". And obviously he ended up shutting down Dire Straits and returning to his roots of focusing on songwriting.
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I'm very grateful to you, LE. I appreciate a lot to reflect upon deeper meanings in MK lyrics. Doing this together is more fun and really interesting. :wave
@banjo: Very interesting! In my eyes it underlines our interpretation. But furthermore i think in Back to Tupelo we are confronted with an Elvis who recognizes for the first time in his career that fame is not everything. And that he lost values that he had in his past without beeing aware of having them in that moment. He wants to change the direction - from the highway to fame to the road of true values. As we know: in the end he did not succeed! (Like you i feel that MK is thinking about this a lot. MK got in his life the right exit. He doesn't play anymore the music that makes him famous, but he plays music he loves. And although his fanbase got smaller, it is still big enough to support him. AND the quality of the fans is better how you and this thread shows ;) )
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Ha Ha, Lestroid: I just added the same point. But you nailed it better ;D
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As they say, Yontwocrows, "Great minds think alike"
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Ways to go - isnt that 'a direction' as opposed to distance?
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I think it's rather distance.
Free Dictionary
quite a ways (spoken)
= a long distance
We're quite a ways from the Mexican border here.
Use in context
Rose has been doing a little more shooting and running while starting to do some walk-through exercises with his teammates, but the actual practice is a different matter. "He's still a ways away from that, from the actual practice part," Thibodeau said after Sunday afternoon's practice. (ESPN Chicago)
Any americans to explain us in detail?
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American, born in the South here. My mother was from Memphis (Elvis's adult home) and my grandparents were from northern Mississippi (near Elvis's childhood home in Tupelo, Mississippi). The phrase "a ways to go, back to Tupelo" just means that it is a long way back to Tupelo. If a speaker from Mississippi said that that, they would mean traveling a long distance. However, in the song I think Mark has a double meaning, that going back to Tupelo is like going back in time. A journey of the soul, rather than a physical journey.
MK has a wonderful way of using regional expressions to develop the characters in his songs. The characters speak like a real person. But then he often puts a twist on the phrase so that it can mean something else entirely. Sometimes it has taken me years to understand the different layers of meaning in one of his songs.
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MK has a wonderful way of using regional expressions to develop the characters in his songs. The characters speak like a real person. But then he often puts a twist on the phrase so that it can mean something else entirely. Sometimes it has taken me years to understand the different layers of meaning in one of his songs.
Exactly. And that's why I come up with this thread referring to a song from 2004. Also it got interesting to me again because Mark mentioned it together
with Gator Blood. Thanks for your reply!
LE
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Thanks Lestroid,
yes, i understand it exactly in that way and in both meanings. My world had crushed if Knopflerfan was right, because in that case everything I've thought would have been wrong. Puh! :clap
I'm also very fascinated of the multiple layers in MK lyrics. They seem at first sight often simple but everytime you listen to a well known song you discover a new meaning, allusion or a new layer ("If this is goodbye" is an example where he himself revealed that he uses on purpose more than one layer).
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The definition yontwocrows and Lestroid provided was spot on. I will just add that to me, it also has a touch of further than you expect... or, deceivingly far.
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I will just add that to me, it also has a touch of further than you expect... or, deceivingly far.
:thumbsup
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Just half a cent, not more, firstly to second yontwocrowns and lestroid on the meaning of the song. I am not an English speaker, so I would never be able to write with the perfect logic they used in this matter.
Then I must say I always understood the song was the voice of Elvis own conscience, just like Il grillo parlante in Pinocchio. It's Elvis himself looking at his past and telling some truths to his current version.
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You are right Nababo. I listened to the song a couple of times on my drive this afternoon and yes, the narrator of the song seems to be a little voice inside of Elvis's head, telling him that he has traveled a long way from his roots and that perhaps he should return there. Alas, Elvis doesn't seem to have listened!
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...Then I must say I always understood the song was the voice of Elvis own conscience, just like Il grillo parlante in Pinocchio. It's Elvis himself looking at his past and telling some truths to his current version.
:clap
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I know that Colonel Parker is somewhere in this song of course, but never really worked out where exacty.
I am not the right person to explain lyrics, but I think I recall reading in an MK itw that the song was from Parker's point of view.
I believe that Parker is speaking to Elvis, he says to him :"you have to do the movies because the songs alone are not enough"
he obliged Elvis to do movies as a "strategic-marketing" plan, while Elvis wanted to do only music I think :think
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I know that Colonel Parker is somewhere in this song of course, but never really worked out where exacty.
I am not the right person to explain lyrics, but I think I recall reading in an MK itw that the song was from Parker's point of view.
I believe that Parker is speaking to Elvis, he says to him :"you have to do the movies because the songs alone are not enough"
he obliged Elvis to do movies as a "strategic-marketing" plan, while Elvis wanted to do only music I think :think
The 3rd verse sums Parker's opinion up pretty much:
"It isn't just the records
No, you must have Hollywood
The songs alone are not enough
That much is understood"
But of course he never got a decent film:
"The story lines they're giving you
Are just not ringing true"
And to indicate how far he's come from Tupelo (his roots), through the music and then all the way to Hollywood he uses the line. I don't really see this as being meant as distance at all:
"It's ways to go
Back to Tupelo"
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Totally agree with you DMG, in that it's not meant as distance at all.....
I think it means either literally one way or other to go or still plenty of room for improvement??
The jury's out....
Either way it's an MK masterpiece!!
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I know that Colonel Parker is somewhere in this song of course, but never really worked out where exacty.
I am not the right person to explain lyrics, but I think I recall reading in an MK itw that the song was from Parker's point of view.
I believe that Parker is speaking to Elvis, he says to him :"you have to do the movies because the songs alone are not enough"
he obliged Elvis to do movies as a "strategic-marketing" plan, while Elvis wanted to do only music I think :think
The 3rd verse sums Parker's opinion up pretty much:
"It isn't just the records
No, you must have Hollywood
The songs alone are not enough
That much is understood"
But of course he never got a decent film:
"The story lines they're giving you
Are just not ringing true"
And to indicate how far he's come from Tupelo (his roots), through the music and then all the way to Hollywood he uses the line. I don't really see this as being meant as distance at all:
"It's ways to go
Back to Tupelo"
Well, I can't see much of Colonel's voice in it. It's a third party - I believe it's Elvis' conscience - looking from a distance to primarly Elvis, but also to both of them at sometimes ("you and the lying dutchman"). And when the narrator acknowledges that the movie plots "are just not ringing true", I don't think that Parker even bothered about it. He just wanted to sell his golden boy up and up, regardless the quality of the product they were involved in. For the same reason, when the lyrics go "sometimes there
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Elvis came from an extremely poor background in the deep south of the US. The family really had nothing.
He was the first real rock star and kicked down the door for others to follow. He became huge very quickly under Col Tom Parkers guidance and at a young age. What happened to him had never been seen before; he was considered the devil, obscene and the main reason for juvenile deliquency all over America. He was attacked on all fronts from all quarters.
(His Sun Recordings before he hit big imo are some of the greatest music ever made and showed his true genius-compare those recordings to what was popular in the charts at the time!!!! it's like music from another planet)
Elvis was very grateful and hugely respectful of Parkers judgements and decisions, because of his poor upbringing he was haunted by the fear that he would one day lose it all and go back to nothing. Before the making of Clambake in 1967 he had made the decision that once his movie contracts were up he was going back to live appearances and possibly the line of soon be back in Memphis is when he was more or less finished with the movies and had made one of the best albums of his career in 1969 From Elvis In Memphis and had recorded many more great songs at these sessions in Memphis. By the 70,s Elvis was standing up to the Colonel and just before he died, he was considering sacking Parker. By then Elvis was a complete mess due to prescription drug abuse.
I believe without Elvis there would have been no Beatles/Stones and many others that followed him.
Christ we could be listening to Perry Como/Bing Crosby type music without his impact. :think
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Thanks for the insight rosco! In looking back at the songs that Mark has written about Elvis..it's obvious what he thought of him..and how he loathed Parker for what he did to Elvis. Is it just me...or does anyone else here see a parallel between Elvis' career..and what Mark turned away from along his own path? :think Mark wrote "Calling Elvis" in the waning years of DS ..perhaps he saw a bit of himself in Elvis' path of self-destruction...and decided to change direction before it was too late. At least Mark had the ability to change his career...Elvis probably realized too late just how self-centered Parker was.
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Well, I can't see much of Colonel's voice in it. It's a third party - I believe it's Elvis' conscience - looking from a distance to primarly Elvis, but also to both of them at sometimes ("you and the lying dutchman"). And when the narrator acknowledges that the movie plots "are just not ringing true", I don't think that Parker even bothered about it. He just wanted to sell his golden boy up and up, regardless the quality of the product they were involved in. For the same reason, when the lyrics go "sometimes there
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Then I must say I always understood the song was the voice of Elvis own conscience, just like Il grillo parlante in Pinocchio. It's Elvis himself looking at his past and telling some truths to his current version.
Yeah, Nababo. I listened to it once more. You're right, it works perfectly well. The first four lines of the last verse sounded at first a little bit irritating, but even this part can be understood in that way. And also expressions like "it's a ways", that are rather used by a person than by a narrator support your theory. I like also the idea that sometimes the voice of the colonel is in Elvis' head. I looked for the interview where Mark should have said that the colonel is speaking but have not been successful yet. I only found the phrases that are already quoted in this thread and i think that a critisism on the Colonel and his management style (lying Dutchman / overdrive etc) are pretty obvious. And also the fact that he has the feeling to go in a wrong direction.
"it's a ways" - can't find the meaning that Knopflerfan suggests. (Beeing a movie star and the king of rock n' roll is a way / method to go back to tupelo? ) @dmg: you're explanation of the phrase is the meaning of distance (far away from his roots). Ahhh! - but now i know what you mean (just read your explanation once more). You're thinking in a positive way (Look what i've achieved, i made my way - this kind of meanings) Why I can't follow this way of thinking is that we know that the film clambake is a turning point and that he changed his way of living in that period a lot. And he didn't do what the Colonel wanted. But you're right it could be read this way. Maybe it depends on each personality how this lines are interpreted. I feel more attracted by the idea that he is longing for lost values in the past.
Thanks to everybody here for all the input. Very interesting!
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Christ we could be listening to Perry Como/Bing Crosby type music without his impact. :think
My late Grandmother loved Perry Como and as a child we used to listen to his records. I remember us both singing along to Catch A Falling Star as though it was yesterday! :-[
P.S. She did joke a bit, calling him Perry Coma once in a while though! :lol
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...and then a tune in my head started "m-a-a-gic moments, blessed with love [...]" ;D
In my humble opinion Elvis was the first artist to mix "white" country with "black" blues music. That got it all started.
A while ago MK said in an interview that as a young lad he started singing "(Marie's the name) his latest flame" while holding a tennis racket like a guitar.
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Thanks to everybody here for all the input. Very interesting!
Thanks, but I really just added some thoughts to your and Lestroid's explanations, which I think are the most accurates about the song. Even about the role of the Colonel's words on the song. It's him somehow, but I think it's him being reminded by someone out of the equation, in perspective. And I do think that MK does this in many, many songs. He creates a narrator, a viewer, a witness, as if he was seing a landscape but, instead of painting, he writes.
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He creates a narrator, a viewer, a witness, as if he was seing a landscape but, instead of painting, he writes.
:thumbsup
LE
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yes, very well described
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Totally agree with all of the above - MK is a true 'Artist' ;D
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My Dad wanted to name me Perry, after Perry Como.
Thanks Mum!
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Guys, warm up is over! Race mode! 8) WARNING: If you are not interested deeply, you don't have to open the attached file. It's only an additional info!
Now I'm getting really maniac: The input of dmg was a kind of inspiration and i wanted to think about the whole more precisely. So i made a table with the lyrics and the three views (third party, inner view of elvis, colonel parker), to have a kind of overview. I attached the file for all the registered users. I've copied the result of this thinking process, so that also the guests can be part of the fun i had. :lol (But to see the table, you've to register ;))
Result:
I think the figurative meaning of Tupelo is very important. It's the headline (Back to Tupelo = What does it mean?) For me it was always something positive. True values, youth, roots
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Wow - that's got to be the ultimate in analyses! Kind of like the sort of thing I did at school when I was reading The Great Gatsby etc! ;D Seriously well done though YTC, I'll give you an A+ for that!
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Guys, warm up is over! Race mode! 8) WARNING: If you are not interested deeply, you don't have to open the attached file. It's only an additional info!
Now I'm getting really maniac: The input of dmg was a kind of inspiration and i wanted to think about the whole more precisely. So i made a table with the lyrics and the three views (third party, inner view of elvis, colonel parker), to have a kind of overview. I attached the file for all the registered users. I've copied the result of this thinking process, so that also the guests can be part of the fun i had. :lol (But to see the table, you've to register ;))
Result:
I think the figurative meaning of Tupelo is very important. It's the headline (Back to Tupelo = What does it mean?) For me it was always something positive. True values, youth, roots
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Guys, warm up is over! Race mode! 8) WARNING: If you are not interested deeply, you don't have to open the attached file. It's only an additional info!
Now I'm getting really maniac: The input of dmg was a kind of inspiration and i wanted to think about the whole more precisely. So i made a table with the lyrics and the three views (third party, inner view of elvis, colonel parker), to have a kind of overview. I attached the file for all the registered users. I've copied the result of this thinking process, so that also the guests can be part of the fun i had. :lol (But to see the table, you've to register ;))
Result:
I think the figurative meaning of Tupelo is very important. It's the headline (Back to Tupelo = What does it mean?) For me it was always something positive. True values, youth, roots
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A few links for deeper understanding of Back to Tupelo
Clambake: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clambake (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clambake)
Elvis met Brando ("You can still be Marlon Brando"):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRZHD7vqPoo
"You'll soon be back in Memphis, maybe then you'll know what to do":
Full album
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVjI8FuP5pk
"a song to give your mother in your first recording booth":
My happiness
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tC-LG7wfvmU
Mark Knopfler talks with Members of Presley first band
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=worxcmEyQ2E
about Scotty Moore (Presleys first guitarist) and chet atkins (who sometimes produces Elvis)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8DEosmFzY4
MK plays the B-Side song with scotty moore of elvis presleys first sun record
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkV-oFnbQHg
Have fun!
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Guys, warm up is over! Race mode! 8) WARNING: If you are not interested deeply, you don't have to open the attached file. It's only an additional info!
Now I'm getting really maniac: The input of dmg was a kind of inspiration and i wanted to think about the whole more precisely. So i made a table with the lyrics and the three views (third party, inner view of elvis, colonel parker), to have a kind of overview. I attached the file for all the registered users. I've copied the result of this thinking process, so that also the guests can be part of the fun i had. :lol (But to see the table, you've to register ;))
Result:
I think the figurative meaning of Tupelo is very important. It's the headline (Back to Tupelo = What does it mean?) For me it was always something positive. True values, youth, roots
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Guys, warm up is over! Race mode! 8) WARNING: If you are not interested deeply, you don't have to open the attached file. It's only an additional info!
Now I'm getting really maniac: The input of dmg was a kind of inspiration and i wanted to think about the whole more precisely. So i made a table with the lyrics and the three views (third party, inner view of elvis, colonel parker), to have a kind of overview. I attached the file for all the registered users. I've copied the result of this thinking process, so that also the guests can be part of the fun i had. :lol (But to see the table, you've to register ;))
I rest my case! Very well done!
And maybe we could dig another interesting songs to talk about in this high level of work!
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Yes I am absolutely astonished about the high and concentrated quality of this thread - no off topics, no fooling around (which of course is great) only thinking, information, opinions. Encourages me to think about a "About In The Sky" thread... another one of Mark's songs which I think about for years...
LE
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My Happiness / That's When Your Heartaches Begin was a private accetate Elvis recorded on July 18th 1953. A second private accetate (I'll Never Stand In Your Way / It Wouldn't Be The Same Without You) was recorded by Elvis on January 4th 1954. That's All Right was indeed Elvis's first SUN single. (recorded on July 5th 1954 and released (backed with Blue Moon Of Kentucky) on July 19th 1954)
Thanks for info
Wow - that's got to be the ultimate in analyses! Kind of like the sort of thing I did at school when I was reading The Great Gatsby etc! ;D Seriously well done though YTC, I'll give you an A+ for that!
Ha Ha, thanks!
Yes I am absolutely astonished about the high and concentrated quality of this thread - no off topics, no fooling around (which of course is great) only thinking, information, opinions. Encourages me to think about a "About In The Sky" thread... another one of Mark's songs which I think about for years...
Lets do it! I need a new challenge! ;D
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Yes I am absolutely astonished about the high and concentrated quality of this thread - no off topics, no fooling around (which of course is great) only thinking, information, opinions. Encourages me to think about a "About In The Sky" thread... another one of Mark's songs which I think about for years...
LE
Aaaahhh ...In The Sky.
I would appreciate an an analysis of this beautiful, yet puzzling song. It is definitely worthy of this kind of analysis. :D
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Yikes! :hmm I am behind on my reading! I found the thread for In The Sky... :smack
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Yikes! :hmm I am behind on my reading! I found the thread for In The Sky... :smack
And it's going to get better before it gets worse. Be prepared to a full discussion of the entire catalogue!
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Yikes! :hmm I am behind on my reading! I found the thread for In The Sky... :smack
And it's going to get better before it gets worse. Be prepared to a full discussion of the entire catalogue!
Verrry cool! I must ask for more vacation from work... 8)