restart > Music > Essays > The Good Bit

Intro to Solo

I think the first time I heard Tunnel of Love by Dire Straits was on Finnish radio soon after the album was released late in 1980. I was a young music enthusiast then, probably already dabbling with a guitar a little bit, but not knowing too much about all that rock'n'roll stuff, except maybe that guitar solos were a very rock'n'roll thing.

The radio DJ introduced the song by saying the usual bits about the song appearing on the newly released Dire Straits album, and then made a point of mentioning that a fairly excellent guitar solo would appear close to the end of the track. Somehow that got my attention, which was duly held until the 8-minute piece was over.

The guitar solo starts gradually with just a few notes at 5'58" into the track, starting from inside a quiet passage, then building on to a rapid-fire fingerfest over the next two minutes. The guitarist is, of course, none other than Mark Knopfler. And it is a scary proposition for an amateur guitarist to even contemplate imitating Knopfler and his style, as he is too scary good for that.

Now, I have never given much credit to all those iconic heavy metal guitarists -- too many notes, too little genuine feeling. Mark Knopfler isn't exactly short of notes either, but the amount of feeling found in his playing of his Fender Stratocaster is in a league of its own, and it only takes the scarce opening notes of the Tunnel of Love solo to prove it.

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