Explore

Maybe, going out on a limb here, but maybe its about broken promises

Negative
Subjective
Sadness
Broken Promises
Disappointment
Regret
Betrayal
Pain

This song is beautiful, mostly for the lyrics. Mark Knopfler is beloved for his keen interest in using music lyrics to give the listener colorful insights into a wide variety of timeless cultural references. Here, Knofler is not only commenting on the sadness of poverty -- of which alcohol abuse is only a symptom -- but a reference to the hardships of the album's theme, the Great Depression.

A couple things I could perhaps add to the commentary below. First, I thought a "brass monkey date" was a spite of cold weather, which the two hobo friends considered liquor...

Positive
Subjective
Enjoyment
Poverty
Alcoholism
Friendship
Illusion
Struggle

The soon to be wedded couple share a drink before they separate and meet at the altar to exchange vows. “I’m getting tied” meaning he is tying the knot - he helps her pin her flowers on, while she holds his drink. The rest of the song is the groom internalizing life’s inevitable mundaneness as they grow old together.

Positive
Subjective
Nostalgia
Romance
Wedding
Relationships
Aging
Mundaneness

The soon to be wedded couple share a drink before they separate and meet at the altar to exchange vows. “I’m getting tied” meaning he is tying the knot - he helps her pin her flowers on, while she holds his drink. The rest of the song is the groom internalizing life’s inevitable mundaneness as they grow old together.

Positive
Subjective
Joy
Love
Wedding
Separation
Aging
Acceptance

I remember thinking when it came out that this song was perhaps inspired by A Clockwork Orange. Any ideas on that?

Neutral
Subjective
Nostalgia
Inspiration
Interpretation

The 1st problem a would be interpretor runs into is operating on an assumption that the poetry is attempting to relay a complete, coherent, thought as opposed to building a trance like state using fragmented notions of mystic experiences & induced hysterics ,& the estatic ecstasy of religious psychosis ...

For 3 days , Christ laid dead & entombed ... 3 days when shadow & light became one ... Because they cease to exist for a dead man ... 3 days before the dead man, forsaken by the father,enters his 3 state , the Holy Ghost ... Shadow & light separate...

Subjective
Subjective
Positive
Interpretation
Religious Symbolism
Transformation
Ritual
Ecstasy

Robert Plant looks back at the entertainment of the 1950s, the years of his childhood, and how film, television, and music stars portrayed upstanding lives, " a community life centered around the church" symbolized by their laundry, "white, clean, and neat." But, as an adult, he knows that the celebrities of that time had secrets that were hidden from the public until they blew up in public scandals: Eddie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds's marriage ending with an affair and divorce while Johnnie Ray was arrested more than once on laws that forbade homosexuality, and had a failed marriage intended to...

Negative
Subjective
Criticism
1950s Nostalgia
Celebrity Secrets
Gap Between Public And Private Lives
Critique Of Morality
Hypocrisy

Here is someone who seeks to construct their house of cards, consciously rejecting conventional ideals. It should therefore not matter to him what others envision his building to be, for its essence depends solely on him and not on the imagination of the beholder. And if the architect has the material, the form, the strength, and the understanding of how it all fits together, yet chooses not to use it, one might assume that he no longer wishes to construct what he once envisioned.

Positive
Subjective
Inspiration
Individuality
Creativity
Self-expression
Introspection
Ambition

.

Negative
Subjective
Anger
Misunderstanding
Comparison
Controversy

Beautiful song. I interpret it as a soldier who has been deployed, perhaps in the Philippines, and will obviously now be on the front lines. If he lives through this battle, he will continue to be a soldier, but will now be back in England. I feel that he is saying farewell to the beautiful island where he has been deployed.

Positive
Subjective
Nostalgia
Soldier
Deployment
Farewell
Battle
Island