Industrial Disease Dire Straits

“Industrial Disease”, from the album “Love Over Gold” (1982).
The title of what later became an AC/DC song is mentioned in the lyrics: "Thunderstruck."Show more

The reference to "brewers droop" as a medical condition is an in-joke, referring both to the effect of alcohol on libido and to the band of the same name that Mark Knopfler played in prior to Dire Straits.

"Industrial Disease" is a song by British band Dire Straits, written by Mark Knopfler. It appeared on the band's 1982 album Love over Gold. The song was released as a single in the United States and as a rare B-side to "Private Investigations" on cassette tape in the United Kingdom.

The song's title is a British term for work-related illness or disease, a frequent subject in British news media at the time. The significance of the phrase was obscure to listeners in the United States, where the term occupational disease is used instead.

"The Purge" is the ninth episode of the third season of Æon Flux. It examines questions of morality and free will.

Aeon goes undercover at the Breen food distribution center where Bambara eats. She takes the booth next to Bambara, tranquilizes him, and removes the custodian. She struggles with custodian as it tries to reimplant itself in her, while Bambara resumes his rampage. The struggle catches the attention of a Breen agent who takes down Aeon with a tranquilizer gun. A bomb that Bambara placed earlier on the train explodes, killing the counter-insurgent leader.

Aeon awakens in Trevor's presence. There is a custodian implantation mark on her navel but she does not feel different. In front of a theater audience, with two young "hostesses" using levers to move props around, Trevor challenges her to determine whether she acts with her own will.

Now warning lights are flashing down at quality control
Somebody threw a spanner and they threw him in the hole
There's rumors in the loading bay and anger in the town
Somebody blew the whistle and the walls came down
There's a meeting in the boardroom they're trying to trace the smell
There's leaking in the washroom there's a sneak in personnel
Somewhere in the corridors someone was heard to sneeze
Goodness me could this be industrial disease?

The caretaker was crucified for sleeping at his post
Refusing to be pacified it's him they blame the most
Watchdog got rabies the foreman's got fleas
Everyone's concerned about industrial disease
There's panic on the switchboard tongues in knots
Some come out for sympathy, some come out in spots
Some blame the management some the employees
Everybody knows it's the industrial disease

Yeah and the work force is disgusted downs tools and walks
Innocence is injured, experience just talks
Everyone seeks damages and everyone agrees
That these are 'classic symptoms of a monetary squeeze'
On ITV and BBC they talk about the curse
Philosophy is useless theology is worse
History boils over there's an economics freeze

Sociologists invent words that mean 'industrial disease'
Doctor Parkinson declared 'I'm not surprised to see you here
You've got smokers cough from smoking, brewer's droop from drinking beer
I don't know how you came to get the Betty Davis knees
But worst of all young man you've got industrial disease'

He wrote me a prescription he said 'you are depressed
But I'm glad you came to see me to get this off your chest
Come back and see me later - next patient please
Send in another victim of industrial disease haha'

Ah, splendid

I go down to speaker's corner I'm thunderstruck
They got free speech, tourists, police in trucks
Two men say they're Jesus, one of them must be wrong
There's a protest singer, he's singing a protest song - he says
'They want to have a war to keep their factories

They want to have a war to keep us on our knees
They want to have a war to stop us buying Japanese
They want to have a war to stop industrial disease
They're pointing out the enemy to keep you deaf and blind
They want to sap your energy incarcerate your mind
Give ya Rule Brittania, gassy beer, page three

Two weeks in Espana and Sunday striptease'
Meanwhile the first Jesus says 'I'd cure it soon
Abolish Monday mornings and Friday afternoons'
The other one's out on a hunger strike he's dying by degrees
How come Jesus gets industrial disease