What songs have made you want to learn more about their subject or their story?
This thread is inspired by Mark Knopfler’s Song for Sonny Liston, which sent me digging through Googled links to find out more about the man behind the caricature I’d had in my mind of Liston. I was in my middle teens when Liston fought Ali, when the glowering thug was twice beaten (was it fixed? was the phantom punch real?) by the beautiful butterfly-bee. For me, informed only by the media coverage of a world I knew nothing about, Sonny Liston was a stereotypical Bad Guy, not much more than a bit player in the fabulous saga of The Greatest, a two-dimensional figure brought on to strut and fret his hour upon the stage and then be heard no more.
Then I heard Knopfler’s song, got intrigued, and started digging. Whaddaya know? Liston still isn’t someone I’d’ve want to hang out with, but the man behind the caricature was way more interesting than the age-faded image I’d had of him – yes, and tragic, in life and death. If you haven’t heard Knopfler’s song, you really ought to give it a listen. It’s perfect for the man who once said:
“Some day they’re gonna write a
Blues for fighters. It’ll just be for
Slow guitar, soft trumpet and a bell.”
Sonny Liston, 1962