Talk:Sultans of Swing

Diatonic phrygian tetrachord
'''The riff uses triads, particularly second inversions. The song employs the Andalusian cadence or diatonic phrygian tetrachord. All the chords are compatible with a D natural minor scale, except for the A major triad, which suggests a D harmonic minor scale.'''

Thank you Captain Obvious, but there's no need to insult us by dumbing things down. We all know Andalusian cadences and diatonic phrygian tetrachords when we hear them. Rex Seattle (talk) 06:07, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

Lyrical Content
Perhaps an explanation of the remark that the BBC was initially unwilling to play the song due to its "high lyrical content" would be helpful. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.79.9.15 (talk) 20:25, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Alan Freed
"Sultans of Swing" is also the name of a band in which Alan Freed played for a short time. Freed was the disc jockey who first used the term "Rock and Roll" I'm not sure if Dire Straits intended this connection when they wrote and titled their song. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.190.26.130 (talk) 03:12, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

HMV released an LP by Django Reinhardt entitled "Sultan of Swing" (on HMV). I am having difficulty finding the date but it is sub-titled 1936 - 53, so I guess it was shortly after that. Barleybob (talk) 11:03, 17 December 2017 (UTC)


 * Good question, but AllMusic lists it as a 2004 release: https://www.allmusic.com/album/sultan-of-swing-1936-53-mw0000540488 Michael B. Miller, PhD 13:45, 12 December 2022 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mbmiller (talk • contribs)

On music theory edits I just made in case someone needs clarification
I just made some minor edits to the section on composition of this song. I don't do much on wikipedia and probably my short comments explaining those edits were negative and incomplete. Here is an attempt at a more complete explanation.

Regarding "D harmonic minor" vs "D minor"

D minor is a key. D harmonic minor is a scale. A scale is not the same as a key. A song can't be *in* D harmonic minor like it can be *in* D minor. You might say that about a song, though, if it consistently went up and down the harmonic minor scale highlighting the augmented second. You might say Klezmer music is often "in harmonic minor" though that is a stretch. Better would be to say Klezmer music often uses a harmonic minor scale. Regarding Sultans of Swing even doing that; that's not quite what it's doing. D minor often has a C# at the cadence. It would be weird if it didn't. If a song stays on the notes of the natural minor scale the whole way through you might call it "D modal minor" because of the flat "modal" 7th in the cadences. Sultans of Swing is normal D minor so sometimes it has a C# and sometimes it has a C-natural. If you want to say for those moments it goes onto a melodic minor scale you can, but I don't think it's so relevant to a wikipedia article on the song. It's not clearly a harmonic minor scale in those moments either because the augmented second is avoided. The C# comes down from the D not up from the Bb, and in any case it would be weirder if it was in minor and had no C#s. The normal way to refer to the key of music which acts like this in English-speaking countries is simply "D minor".

Regarding the octave numbering fix

It's common practice to write male vocals up the octave in treble clef. Since there is no clef in this article it's not safe to assume the vocals should stay written up the octave. I do think the editor was looking at the musicnotes sheet which was mentioned and therefore read the vocals up the octave and didn't think to write the actual pitches.

All this information is varifiable somewhere if you get a theory textbook but I don't know where. I have a Bachelor of Music from the UW Madison School of Music with emphasis in composition. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.87.23.98 (talk) 22:56, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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songfacts.com as a source
An edit of mine using songfacts.com as a source was removed, on the basis that songfacts.com is a WP:SPS and "user-edited". However any user suggestion at songfacts.com goes through the editors, who are named ; so the articles are in fact by these named editors, so I don't think it counts as "user-edited". Also WP:SPS says, "Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the subject matter, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications"; and songfacts.com has been cited or endorsed by Mental Floss:, and cited numerous times by Rolling Stone, (  etc - Google gives me 14 cites of "songfacts" on rollingstone.com), which I believe qualifies it as "published by reliable third-party publications". Adpete (talk) 02:32, 24 December 2018 (UTC)


 * Some pages on songfacts originated with a group of DJs (in California, IIRC), their writers (in some cases) and a smallish number of interviews. At some point, their collection became the original songfacts.com. IMO, some of that (if you can identify it) might be usable. The rest of it is user-submitted, credited to the likes of "Bertrand - Paris, France" or "Mark - West Bountiful, UT". (The entry you are citing is unsigned; it cites a youtube video posted by "X3mekickz" for part of it.)


 * Songfacts says: "How can I contribute to Songfacts? You can contribute to Songfacts by clicking 'Suggest a Songfact,' and entering anything you know about a song into the form, along with where you found the information. We will review your entries and enter them into the database if we deem them appropriate." Is this "editorial oversite" (WP:IRS)? Note the material does not cite the users' sources, it cites "Bertrand" and "Mark". The "editors" have "deem(ed) them appropriate".


 * A non-notable musician claimed(?) to have co-written a very well-known song. Almost no one seems to have taken much notice of the claim. Someone decided to argue against the claim on an Internet forum. No one at all took notice of that argument and I reverted it.


 * This leaves us with, IMO, two issues. The dependent claim, based entirely on an unsigned contribution to songfacts. First, it's copied verbatim, a copyright violation. I can't see rewriting it to add it back here, though, as it's unsigned original research at a forum.


 * The remainder of the section is little better. It's currently cited to two different issues of the same "alt-weekly". The only other places I can find it are the (likely copyvio) youtube video of Wilson making the claim and lots of wikis, blogs and forums. - Sum mer PhD v2.0 04:10, 24 December 2018 (UTC)


 * For reference, the songfacts.com page we are talking about is this one https://www.songfacts.com/facts/dire-straits/sultans-of-swing . I disagree that it is a forum; my reading of the page is that any unattributed comments, including the comment critiquing Bill Wilson's claims (the paragraph beginning "It is unlikely that Wilson's account is true") come direct from the songfacts.com editors. I agree it's borderline, but so are the cites in favour of Wilson's claim; but I don't think it can be dismissed as a forum; especially since Rolling Stone cites the site.
 * There are more problems with that paragraph in the WP article. It states that Wilson supplied lyrics (which is what the youtube comments say here ), but the two cites in the WP article (both to a small newspaper called NUVO (newspaper) don't say that. The first reference (from 1993) says "a significant contribution to Dire Straits' Sultans of Swing, although he was not given co-writer's credit" ; while the second says "co-writing "Sultans of Swing" for Dire Straits" . So the text in this WP article is based on the youtube comments, but backs it up with 2 sources which say something different. And finally, it's POV for Wikipedia to call Wilson's claim "unsubstantiated", without citing evidence for that judgement. (Update: I've now edited that paragraph. You can see the changes I was complaining about by comparing with the old version here: )
 * Anyway, I'll keep digging and hopefully find a better cite. It seems this claim has been around at least since 1993, so I'd be surprised if no one close to Knopfler has ever heard it. Adpete (talk) 06:52, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

Where was the song composed?
I live on Crossfield's estate in Deptford South London where some of the band are supposed to have lived in the early 70's. I wonder if the song was written on the estate? And also whether or not it was written here what the pub was where the 'Sultans' played? There was trad jazz pub called ' the Prince of Orange' in nearby Rotherhithe, which I always thought was the venue of the song. Anyway it doesn't matter, "South of the river you stop and you hold everything" is enough. But if anyone can answer my questions it might add sunshine to the diamond viewed from my local angle. Thanks. 84.67.96.127 (talk) 22:52, 1 September 2022 (UTC)