Mark Knopfler - Brothers In Arms (A Night In London | Official Live Video)

This next song on today's Noon Hour Music Interlude is a song by Mark Knopfler titled "Brothers in Arms (A Night In London)" an | Official Live Video...

Song Background:

"Brothers in Arms" is a 1985 song by Dire Straits, appearing as the closing track on the album of the same name. It was written in 1982, the year of the Falklands War. It was re-released in 2007 as a special edition to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the conflict and raise funds for veterans of it with posttraumatic stress disorder.

This melancholic song was written during the Falkland War, and is described by some as an anti-war song; though more accurately, it curates the experience of soldiers in wartime, and their need for solidarity; which in the final stanza includes their "Brothers" on the other side of the trenches. The war time motif is rather underwritten; but more offered as a natural backdrop ("these mist covered mountains"), increasingly marked by destruction ("these fields of destruction - Baptisms of fire") and death ("Now the sun's gone to hell - And the moon's riding high - Let me bid you farewell - Every man has to die"), suggesting the insanity of war: "We're fools to make war - On our brothers in arms." Mark Knopfler explains that the song is sung by a soldier dying on the battlefield; as a real singer he has to immerse himself, so to speak, in his view and feelings. In the first two verses it is the own comrades to whom the speaker turns, i.e. the "brothers in arms". Only in the final line does it become clear that all enemy soldiers are included within "brothers in arms".

LYRICS:

"Brothers In Arms"

These mist covered mountains
Are a home now for me
But my home is the lowlands
And always will be

Some day you'll return to
Your valleys and your farms
And you'll no longer burn
To be brothers in arms

Through these fields of destruction
Baptisms of fire
I've witnessed your suffering
As the battle raged high

And though they did hurt me so bad
In the fear and alarm
You did not desert me
My brothers in arms

There's so many different worlds
So many different suns
And we have just one world
But we live in different ones

Now the sun's gone to hell
And the moon riding high
Let me bid you farewell
Every man has to die

But it's written in the starlight
And every line in your palm
We're fools to make war
On our brothers in arms

Writer(s): Mark Knopfler