The journey from a failed friendship to Mark Knopfler
I turned 17 in 1994, a year I have many memories from. I remember the deaths of Ayrton Senna and Kurt Cobain, the O.J. Simpson case, and Nelson Mandela becoming the first Black president of South Africa. Also, it was the year of Pulp Fiction and Forrest Gump, and of course, the World Cup final between Italy and Brazil with Roberto Baggio’s iconic mistake.
But there are also memories of personal events—less tragic and dramatic, perhaps, but obviously more important to me as an individual.
One of those is a failed friendship. Have you ever met someone and felt a potential affinity, but then, for some reason, it never developed as it could have? It may be a matter of timing, or a lack of resources and motivation. Or maybe there was less affinity than you thought.
He was a friend of a friend, one year older than me, which meant he already had his driving license. He was a bit grumpy but funny overall. And he didn’t mind my accent at all. We became friends quite quickly, though we kept a certain distance. We used to hang out with a group of friends, never just the two of us alone.
I could feel that the guy had some underlying unease—maybe some anger buried deep inside. You could see it in his driving style: a heavy foot and sharp turns. He used to drive a small car, probably modded, with a ginormous audio system. He was very proud of the car, and particularly the audio system, which he showed off by cranking the volume all the way up. 90s dance music was his favorite genre—something I strongly disliked at the time.
Consequently, it came as a huge surprise when he showed up at my place with a CD I hadn’t heard yet. It was ‘Brothers in Arms’ by Dire Straits.
‘You should listen to this, there are some great guitar parts,’ he said, acting like he was an expert on guitars and good music.
Needless to say, that record blew my mind. It helped me broaden my musical horizons and deepened my interest in guitars. I felt grateful to him, so in return, I lent him one of my Jimi Hendrix CDs.
His reaction wasn’t what I expected. ‘I don’t like it,’ he said. ‘It’s too noisy, and it doesn’t sound good on my car system’.
At 17, that’s reason enough to end a friendship. So, we went back to our casual friendship, giving up on the attempt to make it any deeper.
After a couple of years, we just drifted apart.
In 2024 – 30 years later – I found an interesting Les Paul model, a 2017 Maybach Lester Cherry Lane ’58. It was aged and immediately reminded me of one of the guitars Mark Knopfler played on that album, specifically on the song ‘Money for Nothing’. I never learned that song, partly due to my laziness and partly because I prefer using a pick over my fingers on electric guitar.
Yet, there was still some unfinished business with Dire Straits and ‘Money for Nothing.’ My thoughts drifted back to 1994 and that ‘half-friend’ who first played the album for me. That guitar was my chance at redemption.
I bought it. And I tried to learn that riff. And I did. It’s not 100% perfect, but I’m almost there. And that’s enough.
Because the real goal isn’t to play a perfect piece of music; it’s to reconnect with that memory, to say thank you, and to say I’m sorry I didn’t give my best back then.
