On hearing “Sultans of Swing”, by Dire Straits, in January 1979

I was 14 when the Dire Straits song “Sultans of Swing” came out in the United States in January 1979. I listened to Top 40 radio at the time (I hadn’t yet discovered anything else to listen to in Toledo, Ohio), and the song's guitars and driving beat and evocative story sounded so different than anything else that I heard on the charts. As I just found out, it peaked at number four. When I got the band's eponymous debut album featuring the song, I played it often. Now, at 60. I still turn to it once in a while, as well as to the band's third album, 1980’s “Making Movies”. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 3 September 2024)