According to Knopfler's brother, David, when Mark was about 15, he got a part in a play, and used to come back home on the train every night, and loved seeing the lights on the Tyne (let's face it, who wouldn't? All right, so as a Geordie, I'm biased, but even so!) He even did a painting of them, which his parents had framed and put up on the wall. The song comes from that, and from walking along the Quayside at night with his then girlfriend. Mark Knopfler himself said in an interview that he used to be able to hear the fog horns on the Tyne at night when he was in bed, throughout his childhood and youth, and they made a huge impression on him. That he loves Newcastle and Northumberland is in no doubt; he was asked once, considering that he'd been all round the world, what it was about Newcastle that he found so impressive, and he simply replied: "Everything!"
According to Knopfler's brother, David, when Mark was about 15, he got a part in a play, and used to come back home on the train every night, and loved seeing the lights on the Tyne (let's face it, who wouldn't? All right, so as a Geordie, I'm biased, but even so!) He even did a painting of them, which his parents had framed and put up on the wall. The song comes from that, and from walking along the Quayside at night with his then girlfriend. Mark Knopfler himself said in an interview that he used to be able to hear the fog horns on the Tyne at night when he was in bed, throughout his childhood and youth, and they made a huge impression on him. That he loves Newcastle and Northumberland is in no doubt; he was asked once, considering that he'd been all round the world, what it was about Newcastle that he found so impressive, and he simply replied: "Everything!"