For years I've liked it but in the last decade I've come to absolutely love it. It's just a catchy tune but saying something important at the same time. The piano is always great as usual.
This song wasn't before its time - It was exactly OF its time! The UK was just starting to come out of the depression of the 70s in 82, strikes were common, the Brixton Riots happened in 81, The Falklands War happened before this album was released and of course the Cold War was still ongoing. Also, actual industrial diseases such as Asbestos Poisoning were beginning to get widespread notice in the media.
I think your on point with the meaning. Mark was well known for audio engineering and quality. I think Brothers in Arms was the first D D D format CD, so digitally recording, digitally mastered and digitally distributed, so he was pushing the envelope for sure. If you’re looking for another great Canadian performer, Colin James, “Just came Back, Voodoo Thing, Keep on Loving me Baby” also did a couple Big Band Swing tribute albums and is worth listening to. Check out “Cadillac Baby” and “Let’s Shout (Baby work out)” - an amazing guitarist and has toured with Stevie Ray Vaughan in his early days. Keep up the great reactions!
It would help to understand the '70s in Britain. We had severe issues with workforce/labour relations. Government was left-leaning at the time and some thought that unions had too much power to give workers rights. Strikes were common, shortages were frequent. We were poor, but happy(ish). We were about to enter the European Common Market (what became the EU which we have just decided to leave!), Then came along, as reaction, Thatcher and the Conservatives (big friend of Ronald Reagan politically) and she set out to crush the unions - starting with the miners. Put in place the idea of free market economics and the rest is, sadly, history. This song, to me having grown up in the UK at that time, harks back to the problems of the labour power coupled to the blind-eyes turned to the systemic problems of badly run industries. It was a disease - was never cured - was simply cut out, like an appendectomy, but unlike that operation the subject wasn't fixed, it was simply replaced with a neo-liberalism that favoured the powerful over the weak. Incidentally, we have very little of that industry left now - and that was always the long-term plan for the Right-wing - now we are poor and unhappy(mostly), but we don't know why because we cannot blame Industrial Disease Its a great song too :)
If you appreciate quality lyrics in a song coupled with masterful musicianship then Dire Straits and Mark Knopfler are for you. You might like to check out some of Mark's solo work. Boom Like That, Speedway at Nazareth and Song for Sonny Liston are just three examples from an extensive catalogue.
The song doesn't define Industrial Disease for you. It isn't just overworked people showing up at the doctor's with depression (though that is, as Knopfler sings and you are right in noting, one mental health industrial disease). In the mention of lung disease, blamed in the song on tobacco (an industrially sold disease itself) I see coal miners, steel workers...most mined minerals cause at least lung disease, and a whole lot of toxic mineral diseases like cancers from uranium, etc. The docs always blamed it on your choice to smoke, as if industry had nothing to do with causing it. THAT I see as a major message of the song. I'm always frustrated at the fact we spend endless amounts of money and highly honor the pursuit of cures for cancers (all those public "Runs" that contribute mostly to Pharma for drugs for cancers) without ever mentioning the fact that most (almost all??) cancers ARE a result of Industrial Disease! Anybody for laws protecting the public from reckless mining laws? Or enforcing OSHA laws to protect workers? How about realizing our current laws aren't lowing cancer rates enough; and working to PREVENT them by acknowledging they ARE Industrial Diseases and turning an eye to the industries themselves to prevent them? The latest I've read about is microplastics in our blood streams, causing heart disease (for only one disease, I'm sure). We could replace plastic with several products, including hemp, which can biodegrade. The political will is all that's missing. Rather than ahead of it's time, this song is about an issue that still is not acknowledged; and still the focus is not on the cause. It's an issue that has never gone away. I belong to a gen that grew up on songs that called out society's leaders on the problems industrialization and endless war has brought down upon people and the planet. The lines on theology are typical rock lyrics, too. Precious that one should assess what we are told is true for oneself. Those were major rock 'n' roll issues. Then the music Industry came along, banned most of those songs on the radio; and enshrined songs harmless to society's leaders as the "best" of rock n roll. Likely this song is so encryptic is the fact it would have been banned on radio had it been more defining of the issue. Instead, it got put on the B side of the album, and at least rarely air timed. Rock gens from 60's to now are still championing songs like this. We got a million of 'em.
![Hip Hop Head Reacts To Dire Straits - Industrial Disease [REACTION]](/img/logo.svg){kind=logo}
