Just In: Why Dire Straits’ Hit Track Was Not Released In 1978

This lady writer is pleased to relay the news that Mark Knopfler is back doing that thing with the riffs we all love. The former Dire Straits front man will release a new album, One Deep River, starting with lead single “Ahead of the Game,” which will fingerpick-gize us until the April 12 release date. Knopfler, who has long held a fascination with bodies of water and how it evokes nostalgia, said in a statement that the album was inspired by his many crossings of the River Tyne, as opposed to, say, playing the guitar on the MTV. “It’s what you were doing when you were leaving as a youngster and that feeling is always the same every time you do it,” he

explained. “You’re heading out or you’re coming back, and it just connects with your childhood. The power of it doesn’t go away.” Knopfler has been lying pretty low since being a central rock-drama protagonist in 2018, when he released his last solo album and refused to attend Dire Straits’ induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame or give any reason for his snub. The result was a weird, beautiful mess of a ceremony, which was devoid of an induction speaker for the first time in the Hall’s history. The unsolved mystery still haunts us.