The Dire Straits song Thurston Moore says makes him “run out of the room”
When Dire Straits first emerged on the music scene back in the 1970s, their bluesy brand of roots rock was a sharp contrast to the ongoing craze of rough-and-tumble punk rock. In fact, Dire Straits’ sound was so palatable and technically precise that it actually pissed off some punks – including Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore.
In a new interview with NME, Moore reveals that, to this day, Dire Straits still awaken a sense of “political refusal” within him. He points to the 1978 hit Sultans Of Swing in particular, noting that it’s a song he can’t even listen to without wanting to run a mile. “Not to denigrate that song, because it’s a brilliant, repetitive earworm of a song,” he insists. “But, man, when it comes on… I just go running out of the room!”
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Despite praising the track, branding it a “new wave equivalent” of the Eagles’ 1977 hit Hotel California, he admits that Sultans of Swing “drives [him] a little bit crazy”. Even if he was sat in a “barber’s chair, [he’d] take the bib off and run” just to avoid hearing it.
His aversion to the track is all down to the petulant punk that continues to live within him. The track is great – and that was exactly what annoyed him about it back in the ‘70s. “Sultans of Swing brings me back to this feeling of political refusal towards playing well in the context of punk rock,” he explains.
The punk ethos was very much centred around giving a middle-finger to anyone who told you what to do; if someone thought your guitar tone was harsh or your music was abrasive, you doubled down. Dire Straits were the opposite of that; Sultans Of Swing sounds like London’s answer to Bob Dylan, a soft, musing burst of blues.
Moore’s refusal to be palatable has defined his entire career. Even in an interview with Uncut last year, Moore shared that some of his favourite advice; when The David Letterman Show tried to limit Sonic Youth’s performance slot, Neil Young told him to never let corporate “bastards tell you what to do”.
“I always took that advice – if somebody tells you to turn your amp down, just do the opposite,” Moore recalled.
To honour his punk roots, Moore also ensures he gives a nod to the Sex Pistols. He picks out God Save The Queen as a track he wishes he’d written. “As an American, there was distance in terms of relating to why a band would utilise this traditional title and reconstitute it for their own take,” Moore tells NME. “To me, that kind of linguistic theft was interesting.”
“It seemed dangerous, obviously, to espouse this anti-Royalist statement,” he continues. “To have the line ‘We mean it, man’ was them taking this long-in-the-tooth counterculture hippie-speak and being sardonic and cynical. I was like, ‘What a loaded, incredible, explosive line to melt down everything that comes before you.’ It was probably Johnny Rotten’s greatest moment, that line in that song.”
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