I was revisiting sme Dire Straits earlier today, music that I have not heard since my youth and I wondered what the take on this song was.
I agree with gianchi66. Harry is a sculptor from a working class background. Mark Knopfler is from Newcastle-Upon-Tyne (to our American friends, a city in the industrial north of England that grew from coal mining, steel and ship building) so Harry is probably from there. He sculpts in clay and stone but is ignored by the art illiterati in London (and Leeds which is another northern city but south of Newcastle. An in-joke there!). He's not considered a good artist until he dies but is obviously not around to see his success.
I see the song as a depiction of snobbery in art, or more widely as an illustration of the English "North/South divide. Northern artists are often overlooked by the "trendy boys" until they're dead and then fawned over as being "gritty" and "ignored in their own time". Basically it's about the hyposcrasy of art.
I was revisiting sme Dire Straits earlier today, music that I have not heard since my youth and I wondered what the take on this song was. I agree with gianchi66. Harry is a sculptor from a working class background. Mark Knopfler is from Newcastle-Upon-Tyne (to our American friends, a city in the industrial north of England that grew from coal mining, steel and ship building) so Harry is probably from there. He sculpts in clay and stone but is ignored by the art illiterati in London (and Leeds which is another northern city but south of Newcastle. An in-joke there!). He's not considered a good artist until he dies but is obviously not around to see his success. I see the song as a depiction of snobbery in art, or more widely as an illustration of the English "North/South divide. Northern artists are often overlooked by the "trendy boys" until they're dead and then fawned over as being "gritty" and "ignored in their own time". Basically it's about the hyposcrasy of art.