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Dire Straits Had No Worlds Left to Conquer
How do you pick a single after releasing one of the best-selling albums of all time?
Even before stepping into the studio, Dire Straits sensed fairly quickly that their 1985 album, Brothers in Arms,was going to be a big deal.“I was like, Jesus Christ, we have some serious stuff here,” bassist John Illsley recalls. But they still couldn’t have dreamed up the ensuing mayhem: 30 million copies sold to listeners dying to hear the MTV-defining “Money for Nothing” and stupendously joyful “Walk of Life.” So how does a band choose the lead single between those two Corinthian columns of songs? As soon as he started playing those keyboards, we all looked at each other and said, “Oh boy, now we’re motoring, this is gonna go somewhere cool.”The intro for “Tunnel of Love,” sampling Rodgers and Hammerstein, wasn’t in our minds until we were in the studio with Roy.
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