If you are a loyal fan of Mark Knopfler and Dire Straits, you’ll probably enjoy reading this article. Today, we present to you a few songs that were recorded and created as a result of Knopfler’s influence on the band performing these songs. The word is about the band called No True Valour which is from the Central belt in Scotland.
The first song that we want to present to you is called ‘Living My Years’. This song is written by Jonathan Macfarlane and performed by No True Valour. For the first time ever on Dire Straits Blog, Jonathan shared some interesting facts with us. He also told us how much Mark Knopfler influenced him.
“Yes, Knopfler was a big influence on me. Rather than watching cartoons as I should have been doing as a kid! I stuck on a video of the Live AID gig and that’s where the Knopfler influence all started from by watching that. Then we had the video of Wembley ’85, which was key to everything for me.”
“Apparently, all in the same day wasn’t it. I watched that over and over again. That leads me to his other albums and solo career. ‘Telegraph Road’ is actually my favorite song. I just think it was so well produced at the time but musically brilliant.”
“I wrote ‘Living My Years’ song by No True Valour. You may like it. In fact, there may be a few Knopfler nodes in there.”
The band No True Valour consists of Jonathan and his friend Andy. They are both from Scotland. As Jonathan said, they are playing all sorts of instruments in their studio and creating songs together. He added: “I love it. It’s a great feeling when you hear a song coming together and something that you didn’t expect.”
“I’ve been writing songs since I was in my teens. Now, I’m 36-years-old. I’ve often thought about what drives me in writing. I guess it helps when your grandad wrote poetry and short stories. But, music was always big in my family. Listening to albums and a variety of music too. Learning the guitar from early on helped of course, but watching guitarists in bands captured my imagination and I was determined to at least give it a go,” he added.
What did Jonathan say about the song ‘Living My Years’?
“Well, I was watching Sky Arts one day. A show called Inside the Actors Studio where an actor/actress would speak to an audience from like a drama school. An actor was on speaking of his career and it seemed to me that his love for it wasn’t quite there anymore.”
“A successful actor that is… Perhaps after the movie set to the movie set, his passion, his love for it wasn’t quite the same after a long period of time. So, I created a character to portray that feeling of, feeling lost I guess. Looking back in his life. Thinking, well what was that all about…”
The band until now has just one studio album called Living My Years. You can find that album on YouTube or Spotify. Tracks like ‘Last Days,’ ‘Dark and Grey,’ and ‘Streets That Are Dead’ are Knopfler influenced.
No True Valour is working on another album. In the end, Jonathan added: “I really appreciate the chance on Dire Straits Blog. I hope this gives us a few more listeners.”
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