Dire Straits - Skateaway

by JuneauBlairgowrie, Tayside, Scotland, UK

Dec 2009 2,379 Views 2 Comments

"No fears, alone at night - she's sailing through the crowd
In her ears the phones are tight and the music's playin' loud"

This song brings back a lot of very happy memories for me - I didn't have skates, but I did have my beautiful, metallic purple hand-build racing bike, and the words to this song were just spot on! It was never off my Sony Walkman!

If you fancy watching the official Skateaway video here is the link:

http://new.music.yahoo.com/videos/DireStraits/Skateaway--36095278

Lyrics
I seen a girl on a one-way corridor
Stealin' down a wrong-way street
For all the world like an urban toreador
She had wheels on her feet - on her feet
Well the cars do the usual dances
Same old cruise and the curbside crawl
But the rollergirl - she's takin' chances
Just love to see her take them on

No fears, alone at night - she's sailing through the crowd
In her ears the phones are tight and the music's playin' loud

Hallelujah - here she comes - Queen Roller Ball
Enchante - what can I say? Carry on
You know she used to have to wait around
She used to be the lonely one
But now that she been skatin' around town
She's the only one

No fears, alone at night - she's sailing through the crowd
In her ears the phones are tight and the music's playin' loud

She gets rock n roll, from the rock n roll station
In a rock n roll dream
She's making movies on location
She don't know what it means
And the music make her wanna be the story
And the story was whatever was the song - what it was
Rollergirl - don't worry
DJ play the movies - all night long

She tortures taxi drivers just for fun
She like to read their lips
Says: "Toro, toro, taxi - see 'ya tomorrow my son - "
She just let a big truck graze her hip
She got her own world in the city - yeah!
Ain't that true - Lord I know -
She got her own world in the city
The city's bein' so... rude to her

Slippin' and a-slidin'
Yeah, life's a roller ball
Slippin' and a-slidin'
Skateaway - that's all
Skateaway
Shala shalay, hey hey, skateaway
She's singin' shala shalay, hey hey
Skateaway

... I didn't go down wrong-way streets very often - honestly!!

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Comments (2)

rubyfruit•Dec 14, 2009•MICHIGAN, Michigan USA

cool song

K_rational•Dec 15, 2009•Taipei, Taiwan

Juneau: "No fears, alone at night - she's sailing through the crowd
In her ears the phones are tight and the music's playin' loud"

This song brings back a lot of very happy memories for me - I didn't have skates, but I did have my beautiful, metallic purple hand-build racing bike, and the words to this song were just spot on! It was never off my Sony Walkman!

That version must have been digitized from an old VHS tape. It's way too fast and too high compared to how it sounds on vinyl and CD. And who is that girl in the video? I always wondered.

All of the first four Dire Straits albums are pure poetry, with the songs getting longer and more complex. "Making Movies" is the only one of the four that has a weak song on it ("Solid Rock"). "Skateaway" and "Romeo And Juliet" are still great tracks, 30 years on. Personally, "Telegraph Road" remains my favourite track (but then, I grew up on Prog Rock). I also loved the cheesiness of the "Twisting By The Pool" EP. "Two Young Lovers" is still a great song.

(IMHO, Knopfler should have called it quits after Alchemy. All DS releases after 1984 are tedious attempts to make overly commercial songs that are repetitions of what he did before.)