The solo Mark Knopfler finds hardest to play: “A spiffy electric to that old war horse”

Posted On February 26, 2025February 26, 2025

While often branded the nice guy of rock and roll, there’s no denying the ferocity within the playing style of Mark Knopfler. With a Stratocaster in hand, there’s few musicians with the sort of technical prowess as Knopfler. In fact, the aforementioned pairing are responsible for what is largely considered one of the greatest solos over; the wobbly masterpiece in the bridge of Dire Straits’ ‘Sultans of Swing’.

But despite its composition, which defies the limit of your average player’s capabilities, for Knopfler, it was born from the naturality of a playing style. “It’s really a good example of how the music you make is shaped by what you play it on, and is a lesson for young players,” Knopfler Guitar World. He continued, “As for the actual solo, it was just more or less what I played every night. It’s just a Fender Twin and the Strat, with its three-way selector switch jammed into a middle position. That gives the song its sound, and I think there were quite a few five-way switches installed as a result of that song.”

There’s a familiarity between Knopfler and his trusty instrument that helps negate the tricky physicality of his iconic solo. But for someone so proficient, who openly admits the ease with which he can play a track like ‘Sultans of Swing’, the topic of what he finds challenging is a curious topic to ponder.

“Playing the beginning of ‘Telegraph Road’ always seems hard” he told Vulture. “When you’re going from a spiffy electric to that old war horse. You’ve just got to brace your hands for an old guitar from the 1930s (National Style O). So that’s all part of the challenge of that song, when the guitar itself doesn’t want to play pretty”.

He continued: “Learning to play those longer songs in different conditions — or shorter songs we extended for a live setting — before the modern lights came in was difficult. They got rid of the big old heavy lights, because if one of those dropped and hit you, you’re a dead person. And the new lights seem as though they don’t generate any heat at all. The old lights generated so much heat. We were always drenched when we came off-stage, literally soaked to the skin.”

It’s a nice reminder that Knopfler, despite being a genius with his guitar, also struggles from time to time: “Sweat would be stinging your eyes, so you learn to play with your eyes squeezed shut. I’m pretty sure I played a lot of that stuff without looking. That’s all part of the fun of it: figuring out ways around things. I remember someone putting a little note up at the front row that said, ‘More liquid gumption, please.’ I was spraying the audience with so much sweat that it was stinging them. I always used to think, Only rock and roll could do this.”

Such is the level of Knopfler’s playing that it’s not the actual riff that frightens him. Us mortals would shiver at the mere sight of a tab sheet for any Dire Straits track, while Knopfler on the other hand can play with ease while still affording himself time to panic over the unlikely event of a light falling on you.

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