Today’s classic song that packs an emotional punch is “Romeo and Juliet” by Dire Straits. This one was never released as a single in the U.S., although it was in the UK (where it rose all the way to #8 on the UK Singles chart). Here in the U.S. you had to listen to it on the band’s 1980 album, Making Movies.
“Romeo and Juliet” was written by Dire Straits frontman Mark Knopfler. It’s a song about the end of a love affair and references the Shakespeare play, as well as the songs “Somewhere” from West Side Story and the Angels’ “My Boyfriend’s Back.” In the song, Juliet abandons her lovestruck Romeo, who spends the rest of the song in serious heartbreak. The lyrics tell the story:
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
I can’t do everything but I’ll do anything for you
I can’t do anything except be in love with you
And all I do is miss you and the way we used to be
All I do is keep the beat, the bad company
All I do is kiss you through the bars of a rhyme
Julie, I’d do the stars with you any time
Juliet, when we made love you used to cry
You said “I love you like the stars above, I’ll love you ’til I die”
There’s a place for us, you know the movie song
When you gonna realize it was just that the time was wrong, Juliet?
The song starts with Knopfler playing an arpeggiated pattern on his National resonator guitar (with open G tuning), the same one featured on the cover the band’s next album, Brothers in Arms. The sound gradually builds over several verses to a thunderous climax at the end of the second chorus, then winds back down to just Knopfler and his guitar, accompanied by Pick Withers’ sparse rim clicks on the drums.
That’s where it stays through the fade-out, just contemplating the singer’s heartache. (When he plays it live, Knopfler often stretches out this ending with several minutes of inspired picking, as is his style.)
The lyrics to this song are good but they’re not what makes the song. This is a terrific example of how a great song is a combination of all its components—lyrics, chords, melody, and performance. In that regard, “Romeo and Juliet” has it all.
Mark Knopfler wrote this song after his break up with singer Holly Vincent. The line “Now you just say ‘Oh, Romeo, yeah, you know I used to have a scene with him'” was inspired by an interview Ms. Vincent gave in which she recalled their romance: “What happened was that I had a scene with Mark Knopfler and it got to the point where he couldn’t handle it and we split up.” Sometimes you need art to make sense out of life—and to express those emotions that might be tearing you up inside.
My wife and I saw Mark Knopfler in concert a decade or so ago and “Romeo and Juliet” was the highlight of his set. As moving as the song was when I first heard it when as a recent college graduate, it takes on even deeper meaning several decades later when performed by an older and wiser singer. Forty years on, “Romeo and Juliet” still packs a tremendous emotional punch, but now with years of regret mixed into things. It’s one of those songs that always gets me.
