Dire Straits: The Controversy Over the Song 'Money For Nothing'

Dire Straits: The Controversy over the band's big hit 'Money For Nothing.'

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Released as part of Dire Straits fifth album, Brothers in Arms, the single Money for Nothing would prove to be the British band’s biggest song of their career, but it also garnered an enormous amount of controversy. One country went as far as to ban the song from public airwaves resulting in a backlash from some radio stations Let’s explore what happened in today’s video.
The single money for nothing was a massive hit for Dire Straits topping the top 40 charts in several countries including America. .In addition to that it won an MTV VMA for video of the year in 1986 in addition to receiving 11 nominations and took home a grammy award for best rock performance by a duo or group.
Dire Straits vocalist and guitarist Mark Knopfler would cite ZZ Top as one of the main influences on the song as the band was a huge staple on MTV during the mid 80’s. The song’s origin came to Knopfler during a visit he made to a department store in New York City. An employee dressed in work boots, a baseball cap and checkered shirt walked up to Knopfler as he watched MTV and said the following , "what are those, Hawaiian noises?...that ain't workin'," etc. The exchange gave Knopfler an idea for a song and he soon started started writing lyrics using pieces of the actual conversation he had with the stranger. The song would be written from the perspective of the store employee he met that day. Sting would also sing background vocals on the song and be credited as a co-writer on the song with Knopfler. Mötley Crüe bassist Nikki Sixx would claim years later that the song was about his band's lifestyle and that it was a motley crue video playing in the department store the day Knopfler became inspired to write the song.
While the song was a massive hit for the band it also drew controversy for being labelled homophobic for it’s use of the f word in the lyrics. Knopfler would tell Bill Flanagan in 1984 I wanted to use a lot of the language that the real guy actually used when I heard him, because it was more real…
Rolling stone Magazine brought up the controversy in 1985 with, Knopflerrevealing “I got an objection from the editor of a gay newspaper in London – he actually said it was below the belt. Apart from the fact that there are stupid gay people as well as stupid other people, it suggests that maybe you can’t let it have so many meanings – you have to be direct. In fact, I’m still in two minds as to whether it’s a good idea to write songs that aren’t in the first person, to take on other characters. The singer in “Money for Nothing” is a real ignoramus, hard hat mentality – somebody who sees everything in financial terms. I mean, this guy has a grudging respect for rock stars. He sees it in terms of, well, that’s not working and yet the guy’s rich: that’s a good scam. He isn’t sneering.”
While the video was a massive success on MTV winning video of the year in 1986 at the VMA’s. Mark Knopfler wasn’t a fan of doing videos and al ot of the bands videos up until this point in time saw the band playing the song live. in the book i want my MTV director Steve Barron was asked by the band’s record label to convince Knopfler to shoot a different type of video. recalled meeting the band on tour in Europe in an effort to convince the band to do a new type of video saying “i really wanted to use a new computer technology called Paintbox, which was used to do colorization in commercials and to create logos for corporations” Barron would take Knopfller and his girlfriend to dinner and broach the subject and as Knopfler telling him how MTV needs to be shook up and while Knopfler was about to say no his girlfriend interjected and said “wow you’re so right about that, that’s exactly what mtv needs.”
In January of 2011 it was announced by the Canadian broadcast standards council that Money for Nothing was too offensive to be played on the canadian airwaves singling out the line “that little f word” in the second verse. The Canadian broadcast standards intervened after a resident of St. Johns Newfoundland complained about the song. The ruling would not ban the song on candian airwaves — as radio stations could play an edited version of the song.
However not all the radio stations agreed with the ruling with some Canadian rock stations including in Edmonton (no surprise)