Walk of Life (Dire Straits song)
Encyclopedia
"Walk of Life" is a 1985 song by the British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 rock band
Rock Band
Rock Band is a music video game developed by Harmonix Music Systems, published by MTV Games and Electronic Arts. It is the first title in the Rock Band series. The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions were released in the United States on November 20, 2007, while the PlayStation 2 version was...

 Dire Straits
Dire Straits
Dire Straits were a British rock band active from 1977 to 1995, composed of Mark Knopfler , his younger brother David Knopfler , John Illsley , and Pick Withers .Dire Straits' sound drew from a variety of musical influences, including jazz, folk, blues, and came closest...

. It appeared on their best-selling album Brothers in Arms
Brothers in Arms (Dire Straits album)
- Original LP track listing :- 2005 Re-Issue 2 LP track listing :The 2005 Limited Edition Deluxe 180 gram High Performance Vinyl reissue contained the full-length versions of all songs by spreading out the songs over two half speed mastered LPs....

. It subsequently appeared on their live album On the Night
On the Night
On the Night is the second live album by Dire Straits. It was released in 1993, between Alchemy and Live at the BBC . It features many of their later hits, including the successful singles "Walk of Life" and "Money for Nothing"...

. It was released as a single in November 1985 but had first been available as the b-side of "So Far Away
So Far Away (Dire Straits song)
"So Far Away" is a 1985 rock song by Dire Straits. It appears on the album Brothers in Arms. It became the band's fourth top 20 hit on the Billboard charts, peaking at #19...

" released in advance of Brothers in Arms. The track peaked at number 7 in the US
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 charts and was their biggest commercial hit in the UK, peaking at number 2. The track also appeared on the 2005 compilation The Best of Dire Straits & Mark Knopfler: Private Investigations
The Best of Dire Straits & Mark Knopfler: Private Investigations
The Best of Dire Straits & Mark Knopfler: Private Investigations is a 2005 best of album. Named after their 1982 hit single, it consists of material by Dire Straits, with songs selected from the majority of the group's six studio albums from 1978 up to the group's dissolution in 1995...

.

History

The song was nearly excluded from the album when the co-producer Neil Dorfsman voted against its inclusion, but the rest of the band out-voted him.

A simple rock 'n' roll rhythm
Rhythm
Rhythm may be generally defined as a "movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions." This general meaning of regular recurrence or pattern in time may be applied to a wide variety of cyclical natural phenomena having a periodicity or...

 is used, with chord changes limited to I, IV and V chords. The long introduction has become iconic in some circles, with an instantly recognisable melody played on a synthesiser organ patch. The singer mentioned in the lyrics is said to perform "down in the tunnels, trying to make it pay," a reference to busking
Busking
Street performance or busking is the practice of performing in public places, for gratuities, which are generally in the form of money and edibles...

 in the subway
Subway (underpass)
In England and Wales, the Republic of Ireland, Hong Kong and some Commonwealth countries , the term subway normally refers to a specially constructed underpass for pedestrians and/or cyclists beneath a road or railway, allowing them to reach the other side in safety.The term is also used in the...

. The songs he plays are oldies
Oldies
Oldies is a term commonly used to describe a radio format that concentrates on music from a period of about 15 to 55 years before the present day....

, including "I Got a Woman
I Got a Woman
"I Got a Woman" is a song co-written and recorded by American R&B/soul musician Ray Charles and released as a single in December 1954 on the Atlantic label as Atlantic 45-1050 b/w "Come Back Baby." Both sides later appeared on his 1957 album Ray Charles .-Origin:The song builds on...

", "Be-Bop-A-Lula
Be-Bop-A-Lula
"Be-Bop-A-Lula" is a rockabilly song first recorded in 1956 by Gene Vincent and His Blue Caps.-Origins of the song:The writing of the song is credited to Gene Vincent and his manager, Bill "Sheriff Tex" Davis. There is evidence that the song was started in 1955, when Vincent was recuperating from...

", "What'd I Say", and "Mack the Knife
Mack the Knife
"Mack the Knife" or "The Ballad of Mack the Knife", originally "Die Moritat von Mackie Messer", is a song composed by Kurt Weill with lyrics by Bertolt Brecht for their music drama Die Dreigroschenoper, or, as it is known in English, The Threepenny Opera. It premiered in Berlin in 1928 at the...

". He also plays talking blues
Talking blues
Talking blues is a form of country music. It is characterized by rhythmic speech or near-speech where the melody is free, but the rhythm is strict....

.

Live performances of the song have often been concluded with an elaborate pedal steel
Pedal steel guitar
The pedal steel guitar is a type of electric guitar that uses a metal bar to "fret" or shorten the length of the strings, rather than fingers on strings as with a conventional guitar. Unlike other types of steel guitar, it also uses pedals and knee levers to affect the pitch, hence the name "pedal"...

 solo by guest performer Paul Franklin
Paul Franklin (musician)
Paul Franklin is an American multi-instrumentalist, known mainly for his work as a steel guitarist. He began his career in the 1970s as a member of Barbara Mandrell's road band; in addition he toured with Mel Tillis and Jerry Reed. He has since become a prolific session musician in Nashville,...

.

"Walk of Life" was the song played during the Space Shuttle Discovery
Space Shuttle Discovery
Space Shuttle Discovery is one of the retired orbiters of the Space Shuttle program of NASA, the space agency of the United States, and was operational from its maiden flight, STS-41-D on August 30, 1984, until its final landing during STS-133 on March 9, 2011...

 crew wake-up call on STS-114
STS-114
-Original crew:This mission was to carry the Expedition 7 crew to the ISS and bring home the Expedition 6 crew. The original crew was to be:-Mission highlights:...

 Flight Day 7.

The walk of life
The walk of life
The Walk of Life was an expedition from London to Khartoum in the Sudan that began on 5 December 1985 on the South Bank, London and was completed on 22 April 1986 in Khartoum, Sudan. The distance covered was 2,500 miles. It was organized and led by John Abbey. There were five members of the team...

 was also the name of the charity walk from London to Khartoum 1985-1986, to raise money for famine relief led by John Abbey. The band donated Brothers in Arms Gold disc in recognition and support of the expedition.

The introduction to the song was also used for a time as the theme music for Test Match Special
Test Match Special
Test Match Special is a British radio programme covering professional cricket, broadcast on BBC Radio 4 , Five Live Sports Extra and the internet to the United Kingdom and the rest of the world...

cricket in the United Kingdom.

When the song was originally released, the band explained that a "walk of life" in the context of this song is a traditional journey taken by a storyteller in the countryside, in which he went from town to town telling stories, in the days before radio, television, and recording.

In 2010, the song was included on the disc of the video game Rock Band 3
Rock Band 3
Rock Band 3 is a music video game, developed by Harmonix Music Systems. The game was initially published and distributed by MTV Games and Electronic Arts, respectively, with Mad Catz taking over both roles a year later. It is the third main game in the Rock Band series...

.

B-sides

Having itself been used as a flip side for the European version of the "So Far Away" single, "Walk of Life" had many different b-sides across different formats of release in different territories. The two songs most commonly used were a live version of "Two Young Lovers", which had previously appeared on the 1983 EP ExtendedancEPlay
ExtendedancEPlay
ExtendedancEPlay is a three-track 12" EP by the British rock band Dire Straits, released in 1983. It is commonly called Twisting by the Pool, after the minor hit song of the same name on its first track....

and "One World", the eighth track from Brothers in Arms. A double Vinyl released in the UK in 1985 featured the band's 1978 breakthrough Top 10 single "Sultans of Swing
Sultans of Swing
"Sultans of Swing" was the first single release of the British rock band Dire Straits. First released in 1978, its 1979 re-release caused it to become a hit in both the UK and USA....

", as well as live versions of "Two Young Lovers" and the rare song "Eastbound Train", one of the first tracks that Dire Straits recorded as a band in demo format but never appeared on an album or as a single.

Music video

The music video
Music video
A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings...

 for the song shown in the UK
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 video features a busker or street musician wearing the same shirt as Mark Knopfler
Mark Knopfler
Mark Freuder Knopfler, OBE is a Scottish-born British guitarist, singer, songwriter, record producer and film score composer. He is best known as the lead guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter for the British rock band Dire Straits, which he co-founded in 1977...

 intercut with the band performing on a stage, while the U.S.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 features various sports bloopers intercut with footage of the band performing the song on a stage.

Track listings

7" Single
  1. Walk Of Life 4:07
  2. One World 3:36


12" Single
  1. Walk Of Life 4:07
  2. Why Worry (Instrumental) 3:56
  3. One World 3:36

Charts

Chart (1985/86) Peak
position
U.S. Billboard Hot 100 7
U.S. Billboard Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks 6
U.S. Billboard Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks
Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks
The Adult Contemporary chart is a weekly chart published in Billboard magazine that lists the most popular songs on adult contemporary and "lite-pop" radio stations in the United States...

4
Canadian Singles Chart 5
UK Singles Chart 2
Irish Singles Chart 1
German Singles Chart 15
Austrian Singles Chart 18
Swiss Singles Chart 24
Dutch Top 40 17
Australia Kent Music Report 11
New Zealand Singles Chart 3

Cover versions

In 1986, The Shadows
The Shadows
The Shadows are a British pop group with a total of 69 UK hit-charted singles: 35 as 'The Shadows' and 34 as 'Cliff Richard and the Shadows', from the 1950s to the 2000s. Cliff Richard in casual conversation with the British rock press frequently refers to the Shadows by their nickname: 'The Shads'...

 did an instrumental version on the album Moonlight Shadows.

In 2007, alternative country
Alternative country
Alternative country is a loosely defined sub-genre of country music, which includes acts that differ significantly in style from mainstream or pop country music...

 artist Shooter Jennings
Shooter Jennings
Waylon Albright "Shooter" Jennings is an American singer-songwriter active in the country music and Southern rock genres as well as making his first foray into psychedelic rock in 2009...

 recorded a cover version, included on his album The Wolf
The Wolf (Shooter Jennings album)
The Wolf is the title of a studio album released on October 23, 2007 by American country music artist Shooter Jennings. The fourth album of his career, it is also his fourth for the Universal South Records label. Two singles have been released from it: a cover of Dire Straits' "Walk of Life" and...

. The single was the lead-off single to the album, however, the song failed to enter the Hot Country Songs
Hot Country Songs
Hot Country Songs is a chart published weekly by Billboard magazine in the United States.This 60-position chart lists the most popular country music songs, calculated weekly mostly by airplay and occasionally commercial sales...

charts.
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK