Private Investigations

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Private Investigations"

Single by Dire Straits
from the album Love over Gold
Released	1982
Genre	Rock
Length	05:51
Label	Vertigo
Writer(s)	Mark Knopfler
Chart positions
#2 (UK Singles Chart)
Dire Straits singles chronology
"Skateaway" (1981)	"Private Investigations" (1982)	"Twisting by the Pool" (1983)

"Private Investigations" is a popular song by Dire Straits from their album Love over Gold. Although it was not released as a single in the US, it reached #2 in the UK, and is one of their biggest chart successes there, on par with "Walk of Life", though the latter is considered 'catchier', as it also became a "Top 10" single in the US. Similarly, the album it came from, Love over Gold, only sold 0.5 million copies in the US, though it was well-received elsewhere.

The song begins with a slow piano riff accompanying an acoustic guitar. After several verses, the song opens up into a slow, bass-driven beat, with an electric guitar coming in at the end, before the gradual diminuendo.

On the Sultans of Swing: The Very Best of Dire Straits DVD, Mark Knopfler said this about the song: "It's just about the Private Investigations... "What have you got at the end of the day" - Nothing more than you started out with..." It is said the song was inspired by author Michael Crichton.^{[citation needed]}

Dire Straits

Mark Knopfler

Discography