My Bacon Roll by Mark Knopfler

Album: Down the Road Wherever (2018)

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Songfacts®:

In the UK, a bacon roll is seen as a working man's breakfast meal, typically gobbled down by a tradesman in a "greasy spoon" cafe before starting work on the building site. Here, Mark Knopfler sings of his love for the "bacon sarnie."

S'cuse me, s'cuse me
Have you got my roll?
My roll? My bacon roll?

Knopfler told Uncut about the song's inspiration: "I was in a cafe near the BBC in Portland Place and I heard this guy hail a waitress and say in a very hangdog voice: 'Have you got my roll? My bacon roll.' To me that is poetry. Much more appealing than Wordsworth and his host of golden daffodils, but then that probably means there's something wrong with me."

Comments: 4

AnonymousThe bacon roll rather than say a crushed avocado toastie is a symbol of how the man is lost in the modern working world. He was sacked for not playing the game...
John Wallace from SpainWell, I don't know where you did your team-building but when I was involved we certainly didn't start with a bacon roll. The bacon roll, has has already been stated, is symbolic of a working man and his life. We used to have bacon rolls when I was working at London Airport Gatwick in its very early days. I was on maintenance. We started early and at 9.30 a.m. the trolley lady would appear with the bacon rolls. Later, when I actually ran team-building, our fare was somewhat more exotic than a bacon roll. This is England in in the sixties so maybe it's different in the rest of the world.
Keith De La Rue from Melbourne, AustraliaI can understand this song from two different perspectives. The man who inspired the song may have been in a labouring job, but as Phil has commented, the rest of the lyrics suggest someone rebelling against "team-building" exercises. I have been on both sides of this - being in a technical job role when the team-building people were brought in (and rebelling against it), and later leading team-building exercises myself for teams of technical people who reacted pretty much the same way as the man in the song. Yes, this happens in sales teams, but also when organisations of all types wish to "modernise" more traditional working roles, or upskill people into new roles and structures. I totally get it.
Phil Norman from UkThe above explanation totally incorrect, surely the whole context of the song was about Corporate life, possibly in a Sales organisation which typically embarks on Morale boosting exercises such as Taking the Team Bowling or even White Water water Rafting and on these days the team would assemble to begin the day with a bacon roll.

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