Your Latest Trick Lyrics
Between the satin beans and their bells
Prehistoric garbage trucks
Got the city to themselves
Echoes and the roars dinosaurs
They're all doing the monster mash
And most of the taxis and the whores
Are only taking calls for cash
It all took place so quick
But all I can do is hand it to you
And your latest trick
Security was laid back and lax
But it was only my heart got broken
You must have had a pass key made out of wax
You played robbery with insolence
And I played the blues in twelve bars on Lover's Lane
And you never did have the intelligence to use
The twelve keys hanging off my chain
It all took place so quick
But all I can do is hand it to you
And your latest trick
Past recall has been here and gone
The landlord finally paid us all
The satin jazzmen have put away their horns
And we're standing outside of these wonderlands
Looking so bereaved and so bereft
Like a bowery bum when he finally understands
The bottle's empty and there's nothing left
It all took please so quick
But all I can do is hand it to you
And your latest trick
Prostitutes, like taxis, closing-down bars, and garbage trucks, are the background setting for the events in the song, but there's no indication that the addressee is a prostitute (nor a taxi, etc.).
A musician has had his heart broken by someone he loved; she is not a prostitute, but he likens her to one (see below). And he feels part of the late-night city where nobody is really getting what they want. Everything is dirty, everything for pay.
There are numerous ambiguous terms with one musical meaning and one other: "monster mash" (a novelty song from 1962 and the way the garbage trucks consume trash), bars (portions of a song and drinking establishments), keys (what open a lock, and the key in which a song is played). As a musician, he sees things in terms of music. Also, the double meanings set up the significance of the more important one in the title.
She robs him of his heart (with insolence) not of his money (the literal keys she could have used, but didn't, to break into his home).
And so, broken-hearted, he does liken her to a prostitute, with the ambiguous term in the title. He "hands it to her" (gives her credit for her success in leading him on) and her latest "trick" (her behavior that fooled him, as well as the next man she will be with – by calling him a "trick", he's calling her a whore).
Perhaps unimportant, but I always felt that this was about New York, not London. There's a reference to a Bowery bum, and that's a street in New York, although it's only in a simile. Perhaps the city doesn't matter, but the late closing hour for bars in New York separates the night folk and the rest of the world more completely than in London, making it a little more desperate, and a bit more prone to making those who end the night feeling lost.
@rikdad I think you nailed it. She's not a hooker, but to him she acted just like one by the way she stole his heart and treated him.
@rikdad I think you nailed it. She's not a hooker, but to him she acted just like one by the way she stole his heart and treated him.
A couple other notes:
A couple other notes:
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"You played robbery with insolence And I played the blues in twelve bars down Lover's Lane"
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"You played robbery with insolence And I played the blues in twelve bars down Lover's Lane"
-- He's sad / bemoaning this situation,...
-- He's sad / bemoaning this situation, so he plays The Blues about Lover's Lane -- ...in twelve bars - 12 bar blues is the most famous / common blues progression
"And you never did have the intelligence to use The twelve keys hanging off from my chain"
-- The insult says that if she had been smart, she could have taken much more. -- The twelve keys - there are exactly 12 musical keys that music can be played in -- Hanging off of my chain - he is shackled to the life of a musician
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"Now it's past last call for alcohol Past recall has been here and gone The landlord he finally paid us all The satin jazzmen have put away their horns"
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After last call, the customers leave and the band waits to get paid (by the landlord). Past recall are his reflections while performing; a musician leaves a part of himself and his experiences behind on the stage with each performance. He characterizes the band as 'the satin jazzmen' who are now finished for the night.
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His imagery finishes with a final, dual reflection on the situation: she's gone, and the music has ended ('there's nothing left')
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"And we're standing outside of this wonderland Looking so bereaved and so bereft Like a bowery bum when he finally understands The bottle's empty and there's nothing left"
@rikdad nailed it. DS wrote elegant songs and I don’t think the lyrics are as straightforward as some people believe. I agree with interpretation that she’s not a hooker but to him she acted like one. She “tricked“ him again, and this last one was a good one (“ I don’t know how it happened - it was faster than the guy cut the flick“) I always interpreted that she left him for somebody whom she’ll probably end up doing the same to.
@rikdad nailed it. DS wrote elegant songs and I don’t think the lyrics are as straightforward as some people believe. I agree with interpretation that she’s not a hooker but to him she acted like one. She “tricked“ him again, and this last one was a good one (“ I don’t know how it happened - it was faster than the guy cut the flick“) I always interpreted that she left him for somebody whom she’ll probably end up doing the same to.
The night scene is chaotic but the city is beautiful and full of promise,...
The night scene is chaotic but the city is beautiful and full of promise, just not for the sad night people (“we’re standing outside of this wonderland looking so bereaved and so bereft”) At the end of the night they are all missing the fulfillment they went out to find. The singer is one of them. He ends as melancholic and unfulfilled as the rest of them.
Yes, this song is about prostitution as most Dire Straits songs are. Wild West is not about the US but about the West End London where prostitution used to flourish. Sad, depressing songs but amazingly real and hardcore blues with some excellent guitar work and in this song awesome trumpet and sax solos.
I think it's about the sometimes blurry lines between prostution and relationships which when broken can end up feeling emtpy and transactional than originally felt in the honeymoon period. Perhaps the protagonist was robbed by a prostitute, but I think the keys represent the keys to the heart, and she apparently made a copy although really it looks like he left the door wide open. the twelve keys represent musical notes in my opinion represent the full harmonic potential of genuine romance
@rikdad I think you nailed it. She's not a hooker, but to him she acted just like one by the way she stole his heart.
A couple other notes:
- This is her latest trick... meaning that she's done this before. There is perhaps an undercurrent of self-loathing in the sense of "How stupid am I to let her do this to me again?"
- This song is full of musical imagery:
"You played robbery with insolence And I played the blues in twelve bars down Lover's Lane"
-- He's sad / bemoaning this situation, so he plays The Blues about Lover's Lane -- ...in twelve bars - 12 bar blues is the most famous / common blues progression
"And you never did have the intelligence to use The twelve keys hanging off from my chain"
-- The insult says that if she had been smart, she could have taken much more. -- The twelve keys - there are exactly 12 musical keys that music can be played in -- Hanging off of my chain - he is shackled to the life of a musician
- The last segment is a reflection on the situation:
"Now it's past last call for alcohol Past recall has been here and gone The landlord he finally paid us all The satin jazzmen have put away their horns"
-
After last call, the customers leave and the band waits to get paid (by the landlord). Past recall are his reflections while performing; a musician leaves a part of himself and his experiences behind on the stage with each performance. He characterizes the band as 'the satin jazzmen' who are now finished for the night.
-
His imagery finishes with a final, dual reflection on the situation: she's gone, and the music has ended ('there's nothing left')
"And we're standing outside of this wonderland Looking so bereaved and so bereft Like a bowery bum when he finally understands The bottle's empty and there's nothing left"
"And you never did have the inteligence to use The twelve keys hanging off my chain"
i'd love to know the meaning behind those lines.
This is the one line in the whole song that I'm reasonably confident I've got right: It's a pun, a reference to the 12 musical keys in which songs and other Western music are written in -- and also the 12 literal keys that make up each octave on a piano / organ / synth keyboard; 7 white, 5 black. It fits with the musical pun in the line before -- "I played the blues in 12 bars," where "bars" = both "musical measures" (a "12-bar blues" is one of the standard blues progressions) & "dives where they play the blues." How that...
This is the one line in the whole song that I'm reasonably confident I've got right: It's a pun, a reference to the 12 musical keys in which songs and other Western music are written in -- and also the 12 literal keys that make up each octave on a piano / organ / synth keyboard; 7 white, 5 black. It fits with the musical pun in the line before -- "I played the blues in 12 bars," where "bars" = both "musical measures" (a "12-bar blues" is one of the standard blues progressions) & "dives where they play the blues." How that fits into the context, though -- "And you never did have the intelligence to use The twelve keys hanging off of my chain" that one's beyond me. Best I can do with that is that music somehow is the way to really get to him (the singer/songwriter character he's playing), and she didn't avail herself of that. Something along the lines of the great line the Sandra Bullock character has in "The Thing Called Love," when she says to the Dermot Mulroney character near the end, "You could have had me for a song."
@YouKnowStuff The 12 keys hanging off of my chain - the 12 keys music can be played in, He uses a lot of musical imergery throughout.
@YouKnowStuff The 12 keys hanging off of my chain - the 12 keys music can be played in, He uses a lot of musical imergery throughout.
i lived in chicago in the late 80's when this song came out it fit my life perfectly. i was working in bars watching the band pack their stuff at 3 am, with the groupies hanging around till then also.
The satin jazzmen have put away their horns
I interpret it as nightclub musician loves a girl (not necessarily a prostitute) who repeatedly breaks his heart by being with another man. Her "latest trick".
Prehistoric Garbage trucks have the city to themselves. Just a visual picture through that Mark has conjured to create the scene for us lucky listeners. Get up one morning at 4am go into your nearest city....watch the prehistoric (dinasour looking) garbage trucks reversing, going anyway they want......the giveaway to this interpretations is here: "echoes roar dinasaurs, they're all doing the monster mash" ....play on words mash, mashing up the garbage.
This song gives a real sense of a late night/early morning in a city. I live in the centre of a city and the opening lines of this song are perfect around 4am/5am.
A fantastic blues song that regularly gets a late night play when 'the bottle's empty and there's nothing left'.
Prostitution is merely a metaphor here... the song could be generalized in saying it's about a gold-digger, user, etc... a woman working an angle. Nicte85 hit it on the head above. Some women may not call what they do prostitution, but there are an awful lot of them out there who use sex to manipulate men in order to get what they want... & that my friends, is prostitution... in a much more dangerous form IMO... hence, "Your Latest Trick."