| Heavy Fuel | |
| Cover: | Dire Straits Heavy Fuel single cover.jpg |
| Type: | single |
| Artist: | Dire Straits |
| Album: | On Every Street |
| Released: | [1] |
| Genre: | Rock[2] |
| Length: | 5:10 (extended mix) 4:57 (album version) 4:03 (single version) |
| Prev Title: | Calling Elvis |
| Prev Year: | 1991 |
| Next Title: | On Every Street |
| Next Year: | 1992 |
"Heavy Fuel" is a song by British rock band Dire Straits from their 1991 album On Every Street. The song was also released as a single and reached 1 on the US Billboard Album Rock Tracks chart, making it the band's second song to do so.
In "Heavy Fuel," Mark Knopfler ironically extols the virtues of such vices as cigarettes, hamburgers, Scotch, lust, money and violence. The phrase "You got to run on heavy fuel" is from the novel Money by Martin Amis, on which Knopfler based his lyric.[3]
The song's music video features American actor-comedian Randy Quaid who plays as the band's roadie who is messing around the venues where the band performs and even fantasizes himself as the band's singer Mark Knopfler.
| Chart (1990–1991) | Peak position | |
|---|---|---|
| US Billboard Album Rock Tracks[4] | 1 | |
| US Billboard Modern Rock Tracks | 22 |