Music

Love Over Gold Album Cover Dire Straits

Love Over Gold

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