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Red sun go down way over dirty town
Starlings are sweeping around crazy shoals
A girl is there high heeling across the square
Wind blows around in her hair and the flaqs upon the poles
Waiting in the crowd to cross at the light
She looks around to find a face she can like
Church bell clinging on trying to get a crowd for Evensong
Nobody cares to depend to depend upon the chime it plays
They're all in the station praying for trains
Congregation late again
It's getting darker all the time these flagpole days
Drunk old soldier he gives her a fright
He's crazy lion howling for a fight
Strap hanging gunshot sound
Doors slamming on the overground
Starlings are tough but the lions are made of stone
Her evening paper is horror torn
But there's hope later for Capricorns
Her lucky stars give her just enough to get her home
Then she's reading about a swing to the right
But she's thinking about a stranger in the night
I'm thinking about the lions tonight
What happened to the lions
Starlings are sweeping around crazy shoals
A girl is there high heeling across the square
Wind blows around in her hair and the flaqs upon the poles
Waiting in the crowd to cross at the light
She looks around to find a face she can like
Church bell clinging on trying to get a crowd for Evensong
Nobody cares to depend to depend upon the chime it plays
They're all in the station praying for trains
Congregation late again
It's getting darker all the time these flagpole days
Drunk old soldier he gives her a fright
He's crazy lion howling for a fight
Strap hanging gunshot sound
Doors slamming on the overground
Starlings are tough but the lions are made of stone
Her evening paper is horror torn
But there's hope later for Capricorns
Her lucky stars give her just enough to get her home
Then she's reading about a swing to the right
But she's thinking about a stranger in the night
I'm thinking about the lions tonight
What happened to the lions
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1. The Lions in Trafalgar Square are Bronze, The Lions outside Leeds Town Hall are made of stone.
2. London back then had a pigeon problem, famous for it, Leeds had a huge starling problem
3. London is famous for it's underground, odd then he mentions the overground if it's London, Leeds only has overground railways.
4. Leeds only has the one railway station in the centre, not really a strong point but of course London has plenty. This is quite a weak point though.
Mark Knopfler lived for some years in Leeds so this could be a nostalgia song about his memories of living there.
Plenty of flagpoles and churches with bells in both cities of course.
The lions in Trafalgar Square are cast in bronze. So the song either, gets it wrong, is using artistic license or is talking about somewhere else. Although I have to admit that it does make me think of Trafalgar Square.
About as much happens to the lions as happens to the girl.
It sounds very negative, put like that, but I don't take it all that seriously: it's just a very atmospheric picture of a particular scene.
you could say that the starlings are mundane, and the lions are what she really wants, and as she remembers the soldier and places adventure with the thought of that soldier, she remembers the lions. but thats a bit of a stretch
"Dirty town" would be London, then (and believe me, it is dirty and would have been much more so in the 80s).
The "square" is pretty self-explanatory.
There are "flags" in front of the National Gallery sometimes and always on top of it and several other buildings around the Square.
The "church" would be Saint-Martin-in-the -Fields then.
The "station" would be the Charing Cross underground station which has an entrance on Trafalgar Square (near that entrance there is a traffic light also mentioned in the song).
And of course there are the "lions made of stone", the four huge stone lions beneath Nelson's Column.
Of course this is only my interpretation, influenced by the fact that I have walked across Trafalgar Square feeling lonely like the girl mentioned in the song myself several times.
But the similarities between this song and the location are striking and we know (from "Wild West End" on the same album) that Knopfler wrote about a location just 2 min away on foot.
Well, I can only say that whenever I hear this song it reminds me of those lonely times on Trafalgar Square at sunset I have experienced.
It's about the fact that no one knows each other anymore. the lions were the people that everyone knew. they were respected, whoever they were, but now there are so few of them. it follows this girl through the town she's going through, a town where the lions are virutally non-existant. no more familier faces, but nobody cares. they just care about getting done their own lives. but despite this, the lions will survive.