On-line on the Mason-Dixon LineMonday, September 25th, 2000Today sees the world release of Mark Knopfler's second solo album, Sailing to Philadelphia. This is not a review of the album, though I would be in a position to review it, having been able to listen to a pre-release copy. No: I simply want to report why it sent me to the Net -- surfing to Philadelphia, as it were -- and what I discovered.I will say that the title track is definitely a memorable one: quiet, pleasing, polished, with for once clearly articulated lyrics (it's a duet with James Taylor, who perhaps has a positive influence here); and intriguing in its choice of subject. Sailing to Philadelphia is a catchy enough title with a fairly self-evident ring to it: I almost guessed the melody of the refrain before I heard the song! But beyond suspecting some historical connection, I could not have guessed what it would be about. Here's the refrain: We are sailing to PhiladelphiaListen to the song (view the complete lyrics) and it doesn't take long to work out that Jeremiah Dixon (sung by Knopfler) and Charles Mason (James Taylor) are surveyors, setting off to establish the boundary that was to become known as the Mason-Dixon line. We can also guess why Knopfler was attracted to the theme. Jeremiah, a Geordie charting the New World, is clearly someone the Newcastle-bred Knopfler might identify with; and in Jeremiah's taste for adventure and sense of wonder we can surely trace Knopfler's own fascination with America. After some initial surprise then, you realise that Knopfler's in fact
done once again what he's particularly good at: conveying a mood through
a dramatic monologue (or in this case a dramatic dialogue). But where did
he get the idea from? Is the Mason-Dixon line so much part of American
popular consciousness that this was an obvious theme for a song?
Such is my ignorance of American history that I knew it was time to do
a little surveying of my own, on the World Wide Web.
Britannica onlineA search of the Encyclopaedia Britannica provides a succinct explanation:Mason and Dixon LineApart from explaining the origin of the name, the entry significantly mentions what it stands for when used figuratively today. A European who has never heard of the Mason-Dixon line might wonder about this allusion in a popular song; but to Americans, for whom the Mason-Dixon line is presumably part of popular historical lore rather as 1066 and the Battle of Hastings are for English people, there should be no such surprise. If the hard-copy Britannica were on my shelves, I could have found this out there. Indeed the Random House dictionary is on my shelves, and has a brief entry on the Mason-Dixon line. So an on-line encyclopaedia is convenient, but not by itself especially enlightening. There was more to be found out.
The Web as encyclopaediaTo be honest, EB is not where I first went looking. Rather, I went straight to searching the Web: I expect many of us simply treat the World Wide Web as our encyclopaedia, accepting the fact our searches will often throw up a number of irrelevant sources. And in the case of "Mason-Dixon", though it involves two common surnames, the combination was always going to be likely to produce useful results. The more general search with "Mason-Dixon" as the only search item indeed brings up very few "irrelevant" sites; the more specific "Mason-Dixon line" and "history of the Mason Dixon line" provide even cleaner results.By clean results here I mean that sources that explain the history - who Jeremiah Dixon and Charles Mason were, when they lived, and why they were drawing a line. Such sites are: John Cletheroe's USA and Canada Holiday HintsBut less clean, at first irrelevant-looking sites may serve a purpose. For example, the fact that the Mason-Dixon Home Page listed first in the more general Google search results is a site concerned with political polling research is actually significant: it confirms that the name Mason-Dixon has sufficient currency and the right kind of associations to be an appropriate choice for the name of a research and polling company dealing in political matters. Similarly, and ultimately more obviously, the name comes up again in a site dealing with the American Civil War: The Mason-Dixon Line Civil War homepage. There is no explanation here of how the Mason-Dixon line came to be; rather, it is presupposed that you know it came to mean the boundary between the northern and southern states in the Civil War. But what really caught the eye among the "irrelevant" finds were the references to Thomas Pynchon: Thomas Pynchon's Mason & Dixon (1997)The fact that a major novel based on these two historical characters has recently appeared surely explains why the subject has also made it into a song at this time; Pynchon is a much written-about: author and this latest novel will have received extensive exposure in the media. Mason and Dixon will have been on many people's lips, and quite possibly on Knopfler's bookshelves. I now realise that my puzzlement over the song was simply a result of not being sufficiently aware of American culture - both history and the current arts scene. I hope it's clear how the Web has provided a lot of useful background here, far more than a single encyclopaedia, whether on-line or on-shelf.
Other bonus findsJust look at this list of reviews on Mason & Dixon the Henry Holt or the Hyperarts site! Or follow links to get reviews of other Pynchon novels.If you're new to Pynchon and want to take a look at any of Pynchon's actual oeuvre, perhaps have a look at some advice for Pynchon newbies on the Hyperarts site. And if you're not interested in Pynchon, nevertheless note the availabilty of reviews. See especially the New York Times. OK, you do have to register, but it's free. Book reviews since 1980(!), and much more besides. Try it out: try finding reviews of Paul Auster's works, for example.
You may end up, like me, listening to an interview with Paul Auster. .
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Sailing to Philadelphia
The lyrics
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