Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Lead singer and guitarist of Dire Straits, one of the most successful bands in history, and a solo artist and film composer.
On the island
Eight records
Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II
never fails to move me tremendously
Jimmy Kennedy and Hugh Williams
I love Dino, you know. He has a lovely, relaxed way
Wonderful Land just seemed to me to sum up the promise of the time
I always loved him from the minute I heard him
Duquesne WhistleFavourite
it's totally original, it sums up it's a beautiful little piece of American life
it's one of those pieces of music that I feel as though I need to hear it every so often
I think it's a great song and there's something very tender about it
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:58How much has that [songwriting] process changed in 50 years or so?
Well, I tell you, I've still got a junkyard of of stuff that I can wander into and wonder if I'll find a place, a thing for it, and that s hasn't changed. And every time I start recording, it feels like the first time.
Presenter asks
3:42Are you the kind of person who carries a notebook and is always ready to write down [snippets of real life conversations]?
Quite often I have to look for a pencil. I was actually in a electrical shop in America, in in New York, and there was a guy sounding off about the rock bands that were playing on M T V,'cause all the T V s in the shop were tuned to M T V. What he was saying was so classic and funny that I I had to go and ask for a bit of paper and I … And so that I I actually sat down in a kitchen display area in the window and started writing the song there.
Presenter asks
4:36Do you know when you've written a hit of that magnitude? Do you know in the moment?
Absolutely not. No, I I never think about hits that uh … If there was a formula or a promise, I'd tell you what it is.
The keepsakes
The book
Penelope Fitzgerald
I think I'd like to take a slim volume because, you know, I'll have to be so busy reading all the Shakespeare... Penelope Fitzgerald. She wrote a little book called The Blue Flower and it's about Germany at the end of the [eighteenth] century. So it's the Romantic period. It's a different Europe. You transport into this whole other... You're in this world.
The luxury
my luxury item from heaven would be one of my favourite guitars and a lovely thing it is.
Presenter asks
6:58Tell me a little bit more about your father and his story. How did he end up in Glasgow?
Well, he was a refugee and he came to England in uh 39. He was given two quid, I think, by the Red Cross, and he was a lovely man. I mean, he we had a regular childhood, three kids, and he got a job working in the architect's office'cause he studies in Vienna and then he managed to get to England and was working in the city architects in Glasgow. And then when he got a job in Newcastle, it was the same thing.
Presenter asks
11:55How did you come to play [right-handed guitar] in the first place?
Well,'cause my big sister Ruth, and I think big sisters are very important in this world. We had these dodgy little tennis rackets like you know, that you could get for not very much money. Used to use the tennis racket as a guitar. I was playing it. I was pretending it was a guitar. And she turned it round so that I was holding it right-handed. She said, That's the way you play.
“I've still got a junkyard of of stuff that I can wander into and wonder if I'll find a place, a thing for it, and that s hasn't changed. And every time I start recording, it feels like the first time.”
“I was actually in a electrical shop in America, in in New York, and there was a guy sounding off about the rock bands that were playing on M T V,'cause all the T V s in the shop were tuned to M T V. What he was saying was so classic and funny that I I had to go and ask for a bit of paper and I … And so that I I actually sat down in a kitchen display area in the window and started writing the song there.”
“my big sister Ruth, and I think big sisters are very important in this world. We had these dodgy little tennis rackets like you know, that you could get for not very much money. Used to use the tennis racket as a guitar. I was playing it. I was pretending it was a guitar. And she turned it round so that I was holding it right-handed. She said, That's the way you play.”
“I just don't think it's a good thing for children to be idolized, particularly.”