Tunnel of Love (song)

Infobox Single
Name = Tunnel of Love


Artist = Dire Straits
from Album = Making Movies
Released = 1981
Format = 7"
Recorded =
Genre = Rock
Length = 08:08
Label = Vertigo
Writer = Richard Rodgers/Oscar Hammerstein II // Mark Knopfler
Producer = Jimmy Iovine/Mark Knopfler
Certification =
Chart position =
Last single = Skateaway (1981)
This single = "Tunnel of Love" (1981)
Next single = Private Investigations (1982) "Tunnel of Love" is a 1981 rock song by Dire Straits. It appears on the album "Making Movies", and subsequently on the live album "Live at the BBC" and the greatest hits albums "Money for Nothing", ', and '. It reached the position of only #54 in the UK singles chart, despite being one of the band's biggest hits. Two videos exist for the song, one depicting Knopfler and only two other members of Dire Straits performing on a blank set, intercut with imagery and actors relevant to the lyrics, the other featuring a larger band arrangement and telling the story of a couple escaping a group of soldiers who chase them from a funfair.

"Tunnel of Love" is one of only three Dire Straits songs not written by Mark Knopfler alone (the other two are "Money for Nothing" and "What's The Matter Baby?"). The song itself is entirely by Knopfler, but the opening instrumental is an arrangement of a melody from the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical "Carousel".

Knopfler's outro solo has received numerous plaudits over the years and has many times been described as one of the most heartbreaking guitar solos in history.

The song is referred to in the novel "So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish" by Douglas Adams. [cite web |url=http://www.zootle.net/afda/faq/l.shtml#3-4 |title=The alt.fan.douglas-adams FAQ |accessdate=2007-02-07] : "Mark Knopfler has an extraordinary ability to make a Schecter Custom Stratocaster hoot and sing like angels on a Saturday night, exhausted from being good all week and needing a stiff beer."

It was also used during the film "An Officer and a Gentleman".

The Spanish City in the song was a fairground located in Whitley Bay.

References