I often wonder whether Mark was deliberately trying to sound like Ray Davies on this track - it would certainly have worked as a track by The Kinks. A lovely gentle track that part tongue-in-cheek and part a sympathetic portrayal of gay cabaret. Jean Genet (pronounced Juh-nay) was a French novelist, playwright, and political activist, many of whom's works had homosexual content. He was also the inspiration for David Bowie's song "Jean Genie".

Such a wholesome song

For reasons I don't understand I find myself singing this while doing household chores. It just randomly pops into my head. Such a fun song. Edit : Based on the comments I'm in the minority. Guess I just like music that's different.

They were in Germany (Munich) and were hungry after a gig. The hotel restaurant was already closed but an employe told them they have a club at the 4th floor. So they went without knowing what they're going to walk in. And the boys in leather straps were dancing, true story!

When you like this particular style of Dire Straits, you really should check out the album Communiqué (which is actually my favourite album of theirs)

An absolute classic, always raises a smile

Ah! At last we get to Straits' 'Anthem.' Hurrah! 🤣🤣🤣

Glad you like this one Justin. Long time ago, at first listen, it was my least favourite track on the album. In recent times I really changed my opinion, it's a good song, very funny. I especially love MK vocals in this. I hope you'll listen to the Communiqué album by Dire Straits, not well known by many, but in my opinion their best album ever.✌️

@dongiovanni6796

8 ай бұрын

I felt the same, yet have come around the same way. Let me back up before explaining why... Last review, JP didn't like "Solid Rock", and I felt a couple of other comments were spot on: above all else, Making Movies is an album, not a collection of songs. Solid Rock, at that point in the album, fit. Besides the double entendre, appreciated more by the superannuated among us, that it is a solid rock song, but talking really about how as you get on in life and experience so much change in the world around us (much for the worse) you need a solid rock to stand on. OK, so back to Les Boys. Making Movies songs are about a lot of different people in different places in life. Some of the music is hard (Solid Rock, Expresso Love), some is epic and sweeping (Romeo and Juliet, Making Movies). If I likened it to a meal, Romeo and Juliet is robust red wine, Making movies a steak. Well, Les Boys is the most delicate pastry to cap it all off for dessert. Light and playful, it refreshes as an ending song after so much melodrama, yet the style serves dually to pay respect to these gay cabaret guys, who, like we all, are just one of the groups of people we walk through life with, all in movies of our own.

love the channel, such a positive vibe. thank you! keep it going!

Are you talking about the original British IT crowd. 3 February 2006 - 27 September 2013. An American version of The IT Crowd was almost aired by NBC in 2007-08. A German version of the programme was in production starting June 2007. Google.

@JustJP

8 ай бұрын

Only one I know is the original British show :D

Love this song. Most people just don't understand the story behind it. It's about a rubbish drag act that Mark and the band saw in a disco in Munich while touring in the early days. Thanks for reviewing this and the album. 👍

I had this album when it first came out and played it a lot. Really liked the first side, particularly Tunnel of Love and Skateaway. I tended to skip Les Boys, but listening to it now (40 years later!) it doesn't sound so bad. Maybe the oompah beat would get a bit boring after multiple listens. As for other Dire Straits albums, Brothers in Arms became a bit of a victim of its own success: yes it's a good album but the singles got played to death on the radio, until you just couldn't bear listening to them again. I like their first two albums: well worth checking out.

Huh. Never knew. The sound of this tune is not slavishly locked into their normal sound. Interesting. Learned something and it is not even 0400 hrs.

By 1987? Mark was able to work with the possible musical inspiration for this track, a certain Randy Newman. Please listen to Dixie Flyer. Top top Newman. This? Good refined social comment with a heartfelt arrangement and expression. X

Kudos knowing French.

Underrated Dire Straits song.

"Come to the Cabaret". Les Boys do play to be gay. Real men do not sweat. Real men don't see the threat. Please don't travel and roam. Lola, won't you please come home. Peace & Love.

What a generous reaction to Dire Straits' most dreary track. It contaminates an otherwise superb album IMHO.

München is Munich. Back in the bad days, it was Hitler Country. To me, here, the music is a bit "country" - but maybe that's just the Hawaiian guitar sound. In the years between then, and when Dire Straits went to drink a few liters of beer (it's sold in liter glasses often), the world moved from a place where a gay cabaret was something "underground", with the lives of the performers at real risk from all sorts of hate crimes outside that club. They were part of something a bit risky, dangerous, a challenge to old norms. And I think Marc Knopfler here gives a good rendition of his impression that it's been reduced by the way times change to something almost boring. "They're not afraid now", so that's nice, but now their act in the show is just a ritual commemorating something everyone there has forgotten. Layz Boyz doez cabaret, but it's not the same now. I don't think he's trying to bring forward evidence to make some claim about this. He's just giving his impression of the whole situation as faithfully as he can. Yes, it's his reaction, but I don't get the feeling he's trying to make some kind of irritating point. (It's one that would be sure to irritate at least someone if that's what it was.) He's just "painting the picture". Van Gogh, but with music for colours. I like it. (It's not the best track on the album by any measure, but it's a nice little sketch if you don't have to listen to it every day. And no DJ ever loved it enough to do that to it, so you don't.)

At the root of this song, it’s not much different than Sultans of Swing. Sultans was about a sad-sack wanna be jazz/swing band playing in a dive bar. Les Boys a sad-sack gay review troupe performing in a time slot that would create the least amount of damage to the hotel business. Both groups would’ve been the equivalent of the old Community Service channel for local cable television. But as Mark points out in another video, below, in both cases they push themselves out there to perform, which Mark finds admirable. The song itself, as the album is named, is a small little musical movie. Music, the cabaret piano styling from the late 1930s, is coordinated beautifully with the lyrics. I find it to be a brilliant observational song. Mark’s explanation of song: kzread.info/dash/bejne/gmua3Md7f5nAn9I.htmlsi=IyW2wdocv1FBAD67

i lost interest in dire straits with "making movies", after the brilliant first album and the still very good second album, but i liked the vibe of this track too. then they got keyboards, lost the incredible elastic rhythm tightness, became more of a solo guitar stadium band. still likeable, when i heard them in the radio, but i lost interest.

Great song. I just wished I studied harder in French class.

Musically fun but goes nowhere. Missing their usual spark.

I have my folks every DS album to listen to… and the only comment was about this song, and what garbage it was. Okay, but what about the rest? Nothing. Oh well.

This is possibly the worst song they ever did! I thought Chris Rea had joined and they morphed into Dire Rea !!!

Gave it one more chance...still a flaming turd(apologies to flaming turds), the only bad song MK wrote. Boring musically, lyrically, MK was going for sarcasm...he missed by 10 miles. It ALMOST spoils the rest of the album, wish it wasn't the closing song

@barriehull7076

8 ай бұрын

Probably why it's the last song.

@Cpayne30

8 ай бұрын

I wouldn't say it's a worse song than "My Parties." This one is more successful in it's humor.

@michaelbaucom4019

8 ай бұрын

@@Cpayne30 in what universe Is Les Boys humorous? I've polled 8,765,432 universes and have yet to find one universe who finds it funny. My Parties, on the other hand, mocks people who are just a bit too full of themselves, which is always humorous, except to people who are just a bit too full of themselves.

@Cpayne30

8 ай бұрын

@@michaelbaucom4019 I think the MK's delivery is why this one works better for me. I don't especially dislike My Parties, but yes I do find humor in Les Boys. I'm glad to be the first, I guess.

I'm a great fan of Dire Straits music, but you had to pick this one? 😢 Worst song they ever did!

@Alix777.

8 ай бұрын

Justin is doing the whole album

Quite a few Dire Straits songs can send me to sleep, this one is just unforgivably bad.