Tuesday, April 30, 2013

INDUSTRIAL DISEASE...

Doctor Parkinson declared 'I'm not surprised to see you here
You've got smokers cough from smoking, brewer's droop from drinking beer
I don't know how you came to get the Betty Davis knees
But worst of all young man you've got Industrial Disease'


-Dire Straits 1982
The song takes a look at decline of the British manufacturing industry in the early 1980s, focusing on strikesdepression and dysfunctionality. For example, the absurdity of media-driven maladies is laid out in a segment of the song describing the narrator's visit to a doctor's office for treatment of his "Industrial Disease".
The reference to "Brewer's Droop" as a medical condition is an in-joke, referring both to the effect of alcohol on libido and to the band of the same name that Mark Knopfler played in prior to Dire Straits.
I wish someone would ask why I'm in a wheelchair so I could tell them I have Industrial Disease...

[edit]

No comments:

Post a Comment