River Town chords are now added in my Tracker Songbook: http://amarkintime.org/forum/index.php?topic=4152.msg90543#msg90543
In some of the parts MK sings the same melody he sung in "Stand Up Guy"Actually no other/previous Album sounded so "recycled" as this one...musically, or any other way...
This is certainly a grower. It climbs higher and higher in my personal favourits
Has anyone here read the story, "A Room Forever" by Breece D'J Pancake, that inspired Mark to write this song?
I've found it at Amazon, "The Stories of Breece D'J Pancake", only $7.34
"I hear him in there laughing at me, laughing because I am alone. All the way down the stairs I can hear his laugh. He is right: I need a woman - not just a lousy chip - I need the laying quiet after that a chip never heard of. When I come to the lobby full of fat women and old men, I think how this is all the home I have. Maybe I have bought this room forever - I just might not need another flop after tonight."
:thumbsup :thumbsup
"A Room Forever" is very short and very brutal, not in a sense that the blood is spilling out.
"I look at her, think what she could be if she had a break or two. But she won't get them here. Nobody here gets a break."
I understand why MK might have felt a need to somehow make up for the dark, cold world of sorry river towns by ending the song with this moral, self-reflective remark of the main character ("But something’s hit a nerve / And I’m looking in the mirror / At the face that I deserve"), which you won't find in the book ("I look for her in the mirror but she is gone.", "I have not gotten that low."). In Pancake's reality there's no guilt, no crime and punishment, only a silent acceptance, summed up with the second mate's observation on a "stumblebum" and himself:
"I think how there must be ten of his kind in every town down to the delta, and how the odds on ending up that way must be pretty low. Something goes screwy and they grab the wrong wire, make a stupid move on the locks. But if nothing goes wrong, then they are on for a month, off for a month, and if they are lucky they can live that way the rest of their days."
“River Towns” was a short story by a writer who’s not well known. He’s an American writer called Breece D’J Pancake, who wrote about the people of West Virginia. He actually committed suicide when he was 26. It was very tragic. He could really have been the future.http://www.salon.com/2015/03/28/mark_knopfler_this_getting_older_stuff_ain%E2%80%99t_for_wimps/ (http://www.salon.com/2015/03/28/mark_knopfler_this_getting_older_stuff_ain%E2%80%99t_for_wimps/)
Lis, looks like, we are in the same boat :wave
Lis, looks like, we are in the same boat :wave
Groan. :disbelief
Very modern Springsteen like - and the sax is very like later period Clarence Clemons - compare this song to Clemons solo on something like Secret Garden - very very similar! Very nice song from Mark.
I love how the horn section seems to imitate fog horns.Yup!!! It's very nicely done - very rich sounding. I feel I am on the river when I hear the horns.
After the sax break (or solo) there is a guitar sound from MK which appears later in the outro again - has a very Daniel Lanois sound feeling to me -
and I cannot remember having heard that guitar sound before on any MK recording. Could some guitar freak work out what guitar that might be or tell me anything about it?
I do not listen to Tracker on a daily base anymore BUT I manage to listen to River Town and Mighty Man at least once a day.. my absolute favourite tracks!
LE
After the sax break (or solo) there is a guitar sound from MK which appears later in the outro again - has a very Daniel Lanois sound feeling to me -
and I cannot remember having heard that guitar sound before on any MK recording. Could some guitar freak work out what guitar that might be or tell me anything about it?
I do not listen to Tracker on a daily base anymore BUT I manage to listen to River Town and Mighty Man at least once a day.. my absolute favourite tracks!
LE
Daniel Lohues? :lol
After the sax break (or solo) there is a guitar sound from MK which appears later in the outro again - has a very Daniel Lanois sound feeling to me -
and I cannot remember having heard that guitar sound before on any MK recording. Could some guitar freak work out what guitar that might be or tell me anything about it?
I do not listen to Tracker on a daily base anymore BUT I manage to listen to River Town and Mighty Man at least once a day.. my absolute favourite tracks!
LE
New song "Thinking of a Place" by The War on Drugs really reminds me of this one. It's lovely and the two really flow together nicely. Would love for MK to take a more atmospheric/ambient approach on songs like these some day :think
https://vimeo.com/213900454
Ok? Share it?
LE