Everyone who posted here is right to some degree. The song is about the Silvertown neighborhood of East London. It refers to the building of the doomed Millennium Dome that hosted the new years eve 2000 festivities. The silver bird is flying out of London City Airport, the new single-runway airport near Canary Wharf, the home of many too-big-to-fail banks. I think this may have struck a chord with Mark because he lived for a few years (when he was forming Dire Straits) in the east end neighborhood of Deptford.
Everyone who posted here is right to some degree. The song is about the Silvertown neighborhood of East London. It refers to the building of the doomed Millennium Dome that hosted the new years eve 2000 festivities. The silver bird is flying out of London City Airport, the new single-runway airport near Canary Wharf, the home of many too-big-to-fail banks. I think this may have struck a chord with Mark because he lived for a few years (when he was forming Dire Straits) in the east end neighborhood of Deptford.