Love Over Gold

Music

Album Credits

Mark Knopfler: vocals, guitar
Hal Lindes: guitar
Alan Clark: keyboards
John Illsley: bass
Pick Withers: drums

Additional musicians:
Mike Mainieri: vibes, marimba (track 2)
Ed Walsh: synth program

All songs composed by Mark Knopfler
Produced by Mark Knopfler
Engineered by Neil Dorfsman, assisted by Barry Bongiovi
Mastered by Robert Ludwig at Masterdisk, New York
Remastered by Robert Ludwig at Gateway Mastering
Sleeve Design by Michael Rowe
Photography by Alan Lobel & Peter Cunningham

Released: Vertigo/Warner Bros. (1982)

Love Over Gold

1. Telegraph Road
A long time ago came a man on a track
Walking thirty miles with a sack on his back
And he put down his load where he thought it was the best
He made a home in the wilderness

He built a cabin and a winter store
And he ploughed up the ground by the cold lake shore
The other travellers came riding down the track
And they never went further and they never went back

Then came the churches then came the schools
Then came the lawyers then came the rules
Then came the trains and the trucks with their loads
And the dirty old track was the telegraph road

Then came the mines – then came the ore
Then there was the hard times then there was a war
Telegraph sang a song about the world outside
Telegraph road got so deep and so wide like a rolling river. . .

And my radio is saying tonight it’s gonna freeze
People driving home from the factories
There’s six lanes of traffic
Three lanes moving slow. . .

I used to like to go to work but they shut it down
I’ve got a right to go to work but there’s no work here to be found
Yes and they say we’re gonna have to pay what’s owed
We’re gonna have to reap from some seed that’s been sowed

And the birds up on the wires and the telegraph poles
They can always fly away from this rain and this cold
You can here them singing out their telegraph code
All the way down the telegraph road

You know I’d sooner forget but I remember those nights
When life was just a bet on a race between the lights
You had your head on my shoulder you had your hand in my hair
Now you act a little colder like you don’t seem to care

But believe in me baby and I’ll take you away
From out of this darkness and into the day
From these rivers of headlights these rivers of rain
From the anger that lives on the streets with these names

‘cos I’ve run every red light on memory lane
I’ve seen desperation explode into flames
And I don’t want to see it again. . .

From all of these signs saying sorry but we’re closed
All the way down the telegraph road
2. Private Investigations
It’s a mystery to me – the game commences
for the usual fee – plus expenses
confidential information – it’s in a diary
this is my investigation – it’s not a public inquiry

I go checking out the reports – digging up the dirt
you get to meet all sorts in this line of work
treachery and treason – there’s always an excuse for it
and when I find the reason I still can’t get used to it

And what have you got at the end of the day?
what have you got to take away?
a bottle of whiskey and a new set of lies
blinds on the window and a pain behind the eyes

Scarred for life – no compensation
private investigations

ADDITIONAL MUSICIANS
Mike Mainieri: vibes & marimbas
3. Industrial Disease
Warning lights are flashing down at Quality Control
Somebody threw a spanner and they threw him in the hole
There’s rumors in the loading bay and anger in the town
Somebody blew the whistle and the walls came down

There’s a meeting in the boardroom they’re trying to trace the smell
There’s leaking in the washroom there’s a sneak in personnel
Somewhere in the corridors someone was heard to sneeze
‘goodness me could this be Industrial Disease?

The caretaker was crucified for sleeping at his post
They’re refusing to be pacified it’s him they blame the most
The watchdog’s got rabies the foreman’s got fleas
And everyone’s concerned about Industrial Disease

There’s panic on the switchboard tongues are ties in knots
Some come out in sympathy some come out in spots
Some blame the management some the employees
And everybody knows it’s the Industrial Disease

The work force is disgusted downs tools and walks
Innocence is injured experience just talks
Everyone seeks damages and everyone agrees
That these are ‘classic symptoms of a monetary squeeze’

On ITV and BBC they talk about the curse
Philosophy is useless theology is worse
History boils over there’s an economics freeze
Sociologists invent words that mean ‘Industrial Disease’

Doctor Parkinson declared ‘I’m not surprised to see you here,
You’ve got smokers cough from smoking, brewer’s droop from drinking beer
I don’t know how you came to get the Betty Davis knees
But worst of all young man you’ve got Industrial Disease’

He wrote me a prescription he said ‘you are depressed
But I’m glad you came to see me to get this off your chest
Come back and see me later – next patient please
Send in another victim of Industrial Disease’

I go down to Speaker’s Corner, I’m thunderstruck
They got free speech, tourists, police in trucks
Two men say they’re Jesus one of them must be wrong
There’s a protest singer singing a protest song – he says

‘They wanna have a war to keep their factories
They wanna have a war to keep us on our knees
They wanna have a war to stop us buying Japanese
They wanna have a war to stop Industrial Disease’

They’re pointing out the enemy to keep you deaf and blind
They wanna sap your energy incarcerate your mind
They give you Rule Brittania, gassy beer, page three
Two weeks in España and Sunday striptease’

Meanwhile the first Jesus says ‘I’d cure it soon
Abolish Monday mornings and Friday afternoons’
The other one’s out on a hunger strike he’s dying by degrees
How come Jesus gets Industrial Disease?
4. Love Over Gold
You walk out on the high wire
You’re a dancer on thin ice
You pay no heed to the danger
And less to advice
Your footsteps are forbidden
But with knowledge of your sin
You throw your love to all the strangers
And caution to the wind

And you go dancing through doorways
Just to see what you will find
Leaving nothing to interfere
With the crazy balance of your mind
And when you finally reappear
At the place where you came in
You’ve thrown your love to all the strangers
And caution to the wind

It takes love over gold
And mind over matter
To do what you do that you must
When the things that you hold
Can fall and be shattered
Or run through your fingers like dust
5. It Never Rains
I hear the Seven Deadly Sins
And the Terrible Twins came to call on you
The bigger they are babe
The harder they fall on you and you
You’re always the same you persevere
On the same old pleasure ground
Oh and it never rains around here
It just comes pouring down

You had no more volunteers
So you got profiteers for to help you out
With friends like that babe
Good friends you had to do without
And now they’ve taken the chains and the gears
From off your merry-go-round
Oh and it never rains around here
It just comes pouring down

And your new Romeo was just a gigolo
When he let you down
See the faster they are babe
The faster they get out of town
Leaving makeup stains
And the tears of a clown
Yes and it never rains around here
It just comes pouring down

Oh you were just a roller coaster memory
I don’t know why I was even passing through
I saw you making a date with Destiny
When he came around here asking after you
In the shadow of the Wheel of Fortune
You’re busy trying to clear your name
You say ‘I may be guilty yeah that may be true
But I’d be lying if I said I was to blame

See we could have been major contenders
We never got no money no breaks’
You’ve got a list of all the major offenders
You got a list of all their major mistakes
And he’s just standing on the shadows
Yes and you smile that come-on smile
Oh I can still hear you say as clear as the day
‘I’d like to make it worth your while’

Ah but it’s a sad reminder
When your organ grinder has to come to you for the rent
And all you’ve got to give him is the use of your side-show tent
Yes and that’s all that remains of the years
Spent doing the rounds
And it never rains around here
Well it just comes pouring down

Now you know what they say about beggars
You can’t complain about the rules
You know what they say about beggars
You know who’s the first to blame his tools
You never gave a damn about who you pick up
And leave laying bleeding on the ground
You screw people over on the way up
Because you thought that you were never coming down
And he takes you out in Vaudeville Valley
With his hand up smothering your screams
And he screws you down in Tin Pan Alley
In the city of a billion dreams