Industrial Disease

The song was released as a single in the U.S and as a rare B-side to Private Investigations on cassette tape in the United Kingdom.

Meaning

The song takes a look at decline of the British manufacturing industry in the early 1980s, focusing on strikes, depression and dysfunctionality. For example, the absurdity of media-driven maladies is laid out in a segment of the song describing the narrator's visit to a doctor's office for treatment of his "Industrial Disease".

The reference to "Brewer's 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.