Romeos and Juliets
After I became a fan of Mark Knopfler by way of his 2007 album, Kill to Get Crimson, I retroactively discovered Dire Straits, or at least discovered them in a more intimate way. Though there was little chance that I made it into my twenties without having heard “Sultans of Swing,” or “Money for Nothing,” one iconic Dire Straits song that missed my radar was the resonator-guitar-defined “Romeo and Juliet.”
Dire Straits, as with many other Romeo and Juliet incarnations, uses the doomed couple to evoke the appropriate feelings, but not to retell the Shakespearean tragedy. But it was when Knopfler took his signature approach of combining stock characters with approachable, blue collar sensibility that I started to think I wanted to take a crack at these tragic teenagers:
He’s underneath the window
she’s singing, “Hey, la, my boyfriend’s back
You shouldn’t come around here, singing up at people like that.
The problem I encountered was that any song about Romeo and Juliet is fighting a major battle of cliche before you’ve even penned the first chord. I needed an angle. It couldn’t be a love song, not with them at the center anyway, but yet had to be some sort of relationship to justify those characters' inclusion. Yet, it also needed to have something beyond those things. If Knopfler was to be my guide, it needed a sense of humor about the whole thing, make things a bit less tragic. A lesser tragedy, as it were.
My song starts serious enough, in a melancholy state of C, with a couplet that sets up what sounds like a break-up song:
Hey there, Juliet, it's been the same old act for years
that fire we used to run on has all but disappeared
But then we get the first whiff that maybe it’s not one:
But it just can't be the same after so many shows
This entire act's getting a little worn and a little old
And that breeze beneath your windowsill is getting mighty cold
There still exists the possibility that we are sitting in metaphor territory, using elements from the play (re: windowsill declarations) to dress it all up. As the song continues on, it becomes clearer that maybe we’re talking about an actual play:
Do you recall opening night, with everything so fresh and new?
We didn't know what the hell we were doing and the lines, well, we forgot a few
But it wasn't long 'til we sparked and made so many cry
But despite everything we found a way to make it by
Even when that meant that each and every night, we'd both just up and die
Was the song just a long metaphor? Did the “stage” simply represent the relationship, with all the little details surrounding it following suit? It's still possible, even now, but that wasn’t the song I wanted to write. So, I decided that the song couldn’t stop there. The metaphor couldn't be the only interpretation. It still needed that something.
What would happen, I thought, if I abandoned the metaphor idea entirely, and the song was just a literal recitation of events? Yes, the relationship is breaking, but it’s not because the two people no longer love each other; it’s because they have literally been playing these characters on stage for so long that the prospect has become dull. Maybe they are at the Globe Theater in London, or at Navy Pier in Chicago, or at the local community theater. Regardless, they are over this whole performance thing. Well, at least Romeo is.
The song’s final section comes in with the most over-the-top moment of production on the album, where the schmaltz of a bunch of synthetic instruments converge to stick the landing as Romeo pleads his case:
But c'mon now, Juliet, it's not the end of the world
For every great actor knows
When it's time for him to take his final bow
and let the curtain close
Perhaps the loudest lesson I have taken from Mark Knopfler is to offer details that bring a localized subject to a wider purpose —the “why” to the story you’re telling. The final section gives a lot of insight into the Romeo character. The implication made by the language is that Juliet might be more upset about this whole thing than he is —that first line sounds like he’s trying to reason with, or console, her. He has convinced himself that not only does he no longer feel positive about their working relationship, but that his feelings indicate that he is actually a great actor. I think another implication to be taken away might be that he is not one.
But, he’s right, yeah? Whether or not he is a great actor, great actors do seem to know when to call it a day, metaphor or not. It’s compelling when flawed characters stumble onto wider truths in spite of themselves. And I think our Romeo character here does just that. And by extension, I hope I do too.
“Lesser Tragedies” got the least attention of any of the songs on its namesake album. There were people who specifically told me that it was their least favorite song on the record. I wonder if they saw beyond the Romeo and Juliet clothing, or had they just presumed I had written another stupid love song about the oldest love song in the book. Or maybe they just didn’t like the song, I don’t know.
Or maybe my problem is Knopfler’s Romeo’s all over again:
I can't do the talks like they talk on the TV. And I can't do a love song like the way it's meant to be.
But I can write a lesser tragedy, and that’ll have to do.