Sailing to Philadelphia
2000
Warner Bros.
Produced by Chuck Ainlay and Mark Knopfler
I am heading down to NYC this morning and whenever I drive to the Albany-Rensselaer train station, I always play Sailing to Philadelphia. (What--I can't blog and drive at the same time? If all the other dorkwads on the road can text or yak and drive, I can blog and drive.) Anyway, Mark Knopfler was the guitarist, songwriter, and singer for Dire Straits, and he is one of my absolute favorite guitar players ever. This is the best of the five post-Dire Straits Knopfler albums and it is the most "Dire" in sound. I first heard it in 2002 in David G.'s car when I last visited California, and loved it, so immediately went out and picked it up, ripped it to my iPod, and it was played constantly while driving around the Southwest in the fall of 2002. Perhaps for that reason it is always the record I play when heading to the train station. It also lets me know if I am running late; if I hit the Northway and haven't yet heard the title track (a duet featuring James Taylor as Charles Mason to Knopfler's Jeremiah Dixon and about, of all things, the creation of the Mason-Dixon line), or reach Route 7 and haven't yet heard "Do America" (a parody of rock tours), or hit 787 and haven't yet heard "El Macho," then I know I'm running late. Appropriately, I always pull into the train station parking lot as "Wanderlust" comes on. Go figure.Uh oh--I just realized--I'm not leaving from Albany; I'm leaving from the Saratoga Springs train station. Screech!!
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