When Mark Knopfler was growing up in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, he often visited Spanish City in Whitley Bay, nearly 10 miles down the coast from where he lived in Blyth. The fairgrounds were full of family entertainment, an amusement park, and where Knopfler remembers seeing his “first hearing “really loud” rock concert.
Inside the amusement park was a ride called the Tunnel of Love, a memorable one for Knopfler that later inspired the Dire Straits song of the same name. Released on the band’s 1980 album Making Movies, “Tunnel of Love” is a nostalgic glimpse into the carefreeness of childhood weaved into a more fictitious love story, made up by Knopfler.
Getting crazy on the waltzers
But it’s the life that I choose
Hey, sing about the six-blade, sing about the switchback
And a torture tattoo
And I’ve been riding on a ghost train
Where the cars, they scream and slam
And I don’t know where I’ll be tonight
But I’d always tell you where I am
In a screaming ring of faces
I seen her standing in the light
She had a ticket for the races
Yeah, just like me, she was a victim of the night
I put my hand upon the lever
Said let it rock and let it roll
I had the one-arm bandit fever
There was an arrow through my heart and my soul
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And the big wheel keep on turnin’
Neon burnin’ up above
And I’m just high on the world
Come on and take a low ride with me girl
On the tunnel of love
It’s just a danger
When you’re riding at your own risk
She said, “You are the perfect stranger”
She said, “Baby, let’s keep it like this”
It’s just a cakewalk, twisting baby, yeah, step right up and say
“Hey mister, give me two, give me two now
‘Cause any two can play”
Though the album version of “Tunnel of Love” runs more than eight minutes the song was split in two with the first part also released and running just over five minutes. “Tunnel of Love” is also one of three Dire Straits songs that weren’t credited solely to Knopfler, along with “Money for Nothing” and “What’s the Matter Baby?”
Rodgers and Hammerstein
The opening instrumental was pulled from “The Carousel Waltz” from the Rodgers and Hammerstein’s 1954 musical Carousel. “The Carousel Waltz” would play on the Tunnel of Love amusement ride at Spanish City.
Knopfler later said that when working on “Tunnel of Love” the song and the music naturally came together. “It’s the moment when you know you’re really on to something,” he said. “It happened to me when I was writing ‘Tunnel of Love.’ There’s a certain part of the song that I call the breakdown and when I got there I could feel the drums, the piano, all the things that I wanted all the instruments to do.”
He continued, “When you get to that state, there’s a strange sense of one thing following another, of elements falling into place quite naturally.”
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Amusement Parks and the E Street Band’s Ray Bittan
The song also had an unexpected link to Bruce Springsteen‘s song of the same name, the title track of his 1987 solo album. Springsteen’s “Tunnel of Love” was a love story inspired by the amusement park and rides he remembered at Asbury Park, New Jersey.
Springsteen’s “Tunnel of Love” was specifically linked to Palace Amusements at Asbury Park, which closed in 1988 after 100 years in business. It’s also where Springsteen shot the music video for the single. The song was the last track Springsteen recorded for Tunnel of Love and was written while his first marriage to first wife Julianne Phillips was coming to an end.
Well, it ought to be easy, ought to be simple enough
Man meets a woman and they fall in love
But this house is haunted and the ride gets rough
You’ve got to learn to live with what you can’t rise above
If you want to ride on down, down in through this tunnel of love
Unlike Dire Straits’ interpolating Rodgers and Hammerstein into their “Tunnel of Love,” Springsteen wanted to capture the sounds from an amusement park in his song. Engineer Toby Scott recorded people on a roller coaster at an amusement park in Point Pleasant, New Jersey, which was weaved into the single.
Along with its amusement park link, both the Dire Straits and Springsteen versions of “Tunnel of Love” also featured longtime E Street Band keyboardist Roy Bittan.
Photo: BSR Agency/Gentle Look via Getty Images
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