★★★★★

1. Down to the Waterline: 👍🏻
2. Water of Love: 👍🏻
3. Setting Me Up: 👍🏻
4. Six Blade Knife: 👍🏻
5. Southbound Again: 👍🏻
6. Sultans of Swing: 👍🏻
7. In the Gallery: 👍🏻
8. Wild West End: 👍🏻
9. Lions: 👍🏻

Despite not wanting to break my 44 day streak, I failed to post anything here yesterday, because of a cold. The day just got away from me. Today, I wanted to make sure I listened to something, but I also wasn’t feeling very adventurous. I wanted to be comforted, and so I picked one of my favorite bands and in doing so managed to find a whole new appreciation for them.

Because I’m sick, I had a hard time really paying attention to the whole album all the way through, and what I discovered is that no matter how much I was paying attention, I loved the music. The songs are beautiful and warm on their face, and so if I zoned out it was ok, because I could appreciate the album at that level. But if I was tuned in and really listening I found a whole new layer to appreciate in Mark Knopfler’s delightful flourishes on lead guitar. And when I was really on top of it, I learned to really appreciate the lyrics in a new way.

Dire Straits is a fractal; infinitely beautiful at every layer, and the deeper you go the more beauty and complexity is exposed to you.