“It’s Gonna Be My Birthday Tomorrow” – A Reflective Monologue by Mark Knopfler..

“It’s Gonna Be My Birthday Tomorrow” – A Reflective Monologue by Mark Knopfler..

It’s gonna be my birthday tomorrow. Funny how those things keep coming around whether you’re ready or not. One more circle around the sun, and I still wake up with a guitar riff bouncing around my head before I even have coffee.

I don’t make much of birthdays, never have. I suppose in the early days, we’d be on the road, and someone would bring out a cake in the middle of soundcheck or sneak it backstage. Someone from the crew might hand me a cheap toy guitar from a gas station in Iowa or wherever the hell we were. It was never about the gifts. It was always about the music. Still is.

But birthdays do make you think. About time. About who you were and who you are now. I turned 30 in a transit van with a secondhand Stratocaster and dreams bigger than my bank account. I turn 75 tomorrow with a catalog of songs I never imagined would matter to people the way they seem to.

Sometimes I think about the first chords I ever played. My fingers were stiff, the strings bit back, and the guitar sounded like a tin can in a wind tunnel. But I kept going. There was something in the sound that made sense to me when nothing else did. It was like the guitar knew who I was before I did.

People always ask what my favorite song is, like there’s one answer. But songs are like old friends. Some stay with you forever. Some come back to visit when you least expect them. And some just fade, quietly, like the tail end of a solo when the amp buzzes and you know it’s time to pack up and go.

I wrote “Brothers in Arms” in a storm of emotion. That one never leaves. Still gets requested every night. And I play it, not because I have to, but because I still feel it. That’s the test. If it doesn’t move me anymore, I won’t fake it. That’s one thing about getting older—you stop pretending. There’s freedom in that.

Tomorrow won’t look much different than today. Maybe a phone call or two, maybe a glass of wine with friends. I’ll pick up the guitar, of course. I don’t really take days off from music. Why would I? It’s the only place I’ve ever felt completely at home. Some people need silence to think. I need strings and fretboards.

And you know, it’s not the stages I remember most. It’s not the big crowds or the flashing lights. It’s the quiet moments—tuning up in a hotel room, scribbling lyrics on a napkin, or sitting with another musician at 2 a.m. trading stories and chords like old sailors swapping tales at sea.

There’s a kind of peace in looking back and knowing you didn’t sell out. I made the music I wanted to make. I walked away from things that didn’t feel right. Some people didn’t get it. They said I could’ve been bigger, richer, whatever. But I was never chasing that. I was chasing the truth in the song. That’s still what I’m chasing.

So yeah, it’s gonna be my birthday tomorrow. No parade, no fuss. Just another day to play, to write, to live a little more in tune. Maybe I’ll finally finish that blues track that’s been half-written for weeks. Or maybe I’ll just play some old stuff, let the past keep me company for a while.

If you’re lucky, you get to grow older doing what you love. And if you’re really lucky, someone out there still wants to listen.

Thanks for listening.