Lyrics to
Sultans Of Swing

This version of Sultans Of Swing was released by Dire Straits in 1978.

Our About Dire Straits page at Decade Lyrics includes the lyrics for Sultans Of Swing from 1978 as well as all of the other lyrics from Dire Straits that we have in our lyrics database.

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You get a shiver in the dark
It’s been raining in the park but meantime
South of the river you stop and you hold everything
A band is blowing Dixie double four time
You feel all right when you hear that music ring

You step inside but you don’t see too many faces
Coming in out of the rain to hear the jazz go down
Too much competition too many other places
But not too many horns can make that sound
Way on downsouth way on downsouth London town

You check out Guitar George he knows all the chords
Mind he’s strictly rhythm he doesn’t want to make it cry or sing
And an old guitar is all he can afford
When he gets up under the lights to play his thing

And Harry doesn’t mind if he doesn’t make the scene
He’s got a daytime job he’s doing alright
He can play honky tonk just like anything
Saving it up for Friday night
With the Sultans with the Sultans of Swing

Amd a crowd of young boys they’re fooling around in the corner
Drunk and dressed in their best brown baggies and their platform soles
They don’t give a damn about any trumpet playing band
It ain’t what they call rock and roll
And the Sultans played Creole

And then the man he steps right up to the microphone
And says at last just as the time bell rings
‘Thank you goodnight now it’s time to go home’
and he makes it fast with one more thing
‘We are the Sultans of Swing’

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Dire Straits has released many songs over the years besides Sultans Of Swing. Dire Straits released songs from 1978 to 1991 spanning across albums like Dire Straits, Communique, Making Movies, Love Over Gold, ExtendedancEPlay, Brothers In Arms, and On Every Street. Decade Lyrics has over lyrics & songs by Dire Straits.

If you're a fan of lyrics from 1970s songs looking for more songs from 1978 or the 1970s overall, you've come to the right place!

About Lyrics and Sultans Of Swing by Dire Straits

The lyrics for Sultans Of Swing are made up of the words, verses and background chorus for the popular 1978 song by Dire Straits. Like a lot of songs, the lyrics to Sultans Of Swing have both direct meanings and metaphorical context hidden within the song's words. All of the meanings are only truly known by the creators of the lyrics for Sultans Of Swing - Dire Straits and any of the writers who worked with them on the song.

If you have an interest in the structure of words and phrases, you can dissect the lyrics to Sultans Of Swing by Dire Straits in multiple ways. The word "lyric" itself derives from the Latin word lyricus, with the actual English word lyrics applied to the definition "words set to music" listed in Stainer and Barrett's 1876 Dictionary of Musical Terms. Continuing the chain, the Latin word lyricus derives from the Greek word λυρικός or lyrikós. This somewhat means "poetry accompanied by the lyre" or "words set to music." You can easily see that by looking at the background of the word lyric, that the "lyrics to Sultans Of Swing" means the words set to the music of Sultans Of Swing, or poetry accompanied by the lyre played by Dire Straits. The singular form "lyric" is still used to mean the complete words to a song. However, the singular form lyric is also commonly used to refer to a specific line (or phrase) within a song's lyrics. Hence, by this analysis of word structure, you could say that the lyric to Sultans Of Swing and the lyrics to Sultans Of Swing are both one and the same thing. None of this talk about the word Lyrics is really relevant to fans of Dire Straits who came here looking just for the lyrics to Sultans Of Swing, but we feel it is still fun to learn what's behind commonly used words and lyrics in songs.

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