Private Investigations

The song opens with a deep synthesizer orchestration, then a slow piano progression under a classical guitar and spoken verses. A slow bass-driven beat and strident electric guitar chords follow, and it ends in a gradual diminuendo of interplay between Knopfler's acoustic guitar and the marimba of Mike Mainieri. The 7-inch single edit drops the synthesizers and begins with the acoustic guitar. On the Sultans of Swing: The Very Best of Dire Straits DVD, Knopfler said the song asks what you have at the end of the day, and answered that it is nothing more than you started out with. It is said to have been inspired by Raymond Chandler.

It reached number two in the UK despite its length, and was the band's first single there to reach the top five. The B-side was Badges, Posters, Stickers, T-Shirts, a track cut from the album. Knopfler adapted it into a score for Bill Forsyth's film Comfort and Joy in 1984, and the riff was used in a 1984 Crédit Agricole advert in France and a 1994 BT advert.

Live

Parts of it were first played live in 1981 as a coda to News.