Brothers In Arms Calling Elvis Dire Straits

Brothers In Arms Album: Brothers In Arms (1985)
Calling Elvis Album: On Every Street (1991)
by Dire Straits

Brothers In Arms was inspired by the Falklands War, which was going on when Dire Straits lead singer Mark Knopfler wrote the song. The Falklands War was a conflict between Argentina and the UK over islands off the coast of Argentina that each country claimed rights to. The islands are British territories, but in 1982 Argentina tried to reclaim one of the islands. Britain reclaimed their territories, but lost 258 soldiers in the conflict.

In Brothers In Arms, Mark Knopfler sings about a soldier who is dying on the battlefield, surrounded by his comrades, who remain by his side as he slips away. It's a look at the folly of war and the plight of those who fight them. "We've got just one world but we live in different ones," he told the BBC. "It's just stupid, it really is. We're just foolish to take part in anybody's war."

The title is something Knopfler's dad said. In discussing the Falklands War, he described the Brits and Argentines as "Brothers In Arms," meaning they had similar ideologies. That phrase ended up being used as the title for the album.

In 2007, a new version of this track featuring Mark Knopfler was released to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Falklands War. Proceeds from the sale of the single went to a program that brought British veterans back to the site of the war in an effort to help them deal with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Brothers In Arms is played in the Brad Pitt/ Robert Redford film Spy Game when Robert Redford's character meets Pitt's character in Germany after the Vietnam War. The song begins as Brad Pitt is flown out of Vietnam, the link being the fact that this is a song about comrades in war.

Compared to the music video for "Money For Nothing," which was very modern for the time, very colorful and also very '80s, the video for "Brothers In Arms" is quite the opposite. It features sketchings of an ocean, a pendulum, soldiers, an island and the band playing as well as real footage of landscape and the band. This keeps the colors in black, white and gray with the exception of the end that is a colored sunset.

Metallica covered Brothers In Arms when they played Neil Young's Bridge School Benefit on October 27, 2007.

This played in the series finale of The Americans, which is about a family of Russian spies posing as regular Americans. The song plays in a section where their covers are unraveling, and it appears they now have common goals with those who were once their enemies.

"Calling Elvis" is written by Mark Knopfler. It first appeared on the final studio album by the band, On Every Street (1991). It was released in August 1991 by Vertigo and Warner Bros. as the first single from that album, peaking at number 21 in the United Kingdom, and reaching the top 10 in numerous other countries. It was included on the 2005 compilation The Best of Dire Straits & Mark Knopfler: Private Investigations. A live version of the song also appears on the 1993 live album On the Night.

The song is about an Elvis fan who believes Elvis Presley is still alive, making references to many of his songs, including "Heartbreak Hotel", "Love Me Tender", "Love Me (Treat Me Like a Fool)", "Don't Be Cruel" and "Return to Sender", as well as the expression "Elvis has left the building". Mark Knopfler has been quoted as saying the idea came to him one day when he left his phone off the hook and his brother-in-law tried repeatedly to get hold of him. Upon finally doing so, the brother-in-law remarked Mark was harder to get hold of than Elvis.