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"Skateaway" is a 1980 rock song by Dire Straits, dealing with a female roller-skater breezing through busy city streets, while listening to a portable radio through her headphones. It appears on the band's 1980 album Making Movies. It was released as a single in 1980, and in January 1981 peaked at number 58 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number 37 on the UK Singles Chart. The song was accompanied by a video that was popular on MTV, featuring musician Jayzik Azikiwe (1958–2008) as Rollergirl. The daughter of Nigeria's first president Nnamdi Azikiwe, she was credited as Jay Carly in the video dire

Key facts

Song.B side
Solid Rock
Song.name
Skateaway
Song.cover
Skateaway.jpg
Song.type
single
Song.artist
Dire Straits
Song.album
Making Movies
Song.released
December 1980 (US) March 1981 (UK)
Song.recorded
20 June – 25 August 1980
Song.genre
Rock heartland rock
Song.length
6:40 (album version) 4:43 (single version)
Song.label
Vertigo
Song.writer
Mark Knopfler
Song.producer
Mark Knopfler Jimmy Iovine
Song.prev_title
Tunnel of Love
Song.prev_year
1980
Song.next_title
Romeo and Juliet
Song.next_year
1981

via Wikipedia infobox

~2 min read

Encyclopedic overview

4 sections
Contents
  • Reception
  • Charts
  • References
  • External links

"Skateaway" is a 1980 rock song by Dire Straits, dealing with a female roller-skater breezing through busy city streets, while listening to a portable radio through her headphones. It appears on the band's 1980 album Making Movies. It was released as a single in 1980, and in January 1981 peaked at number 58 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number 37 on the UK Singles Chart. The song was accompanied by a video that was popular on MTV, featuring musician Jayzik Azikiwe (1958–2008) as Rollergirl. The daughter of Nigeria's first president Nnamdi Azikiwe, she was credited as Jay Carly in the video directed by Lester Bookbinder.

==Reception== Record World said that the narrative is "as vivid as [Knopfler's] guitar is distinctive". Ultimate Classic Rock critic Michael Gallucci rated "Skateaway" as Dire Straits' seventh best song, saying that it "sticks closer to a traditional rock-radio format" than the other songs on Making Movies.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Skateaway” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.