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Money for Nothing
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Money for Nothing
"Money for Nothing" is a song by the British rock band Dire Straits, the second track on their fifth studio album Brothers in Arms (1985). It was released as the album's second single on 28 June 1985 through Vertigo Records. The song's lyrics are written from the point of view of two working-class men watching music videos and commenting on what they see. The song features a guest appearance by Sting, who sings the signature falsetto introduction, background vocals and a backing chorus of "I want my MTV" set to the same notes as the chorus of the Police's hit "Don't Stand So Close To Me". The groundbreaking Steve Barron-directed music video, one of the first uses of computer-animated human characters, was the first to be aired on MTV Europe when the network launched on 1 August 1987.
It was Dire Straits' most commercially successful single, peaking at number one for three weeks on both the US Billboard Hot 100 and Top Rock Tracks chart and number four in the band's native UK. In July 1985, the month following its release, Dire Straits and Sting performed the song at Live Aid. At the 28th Annual Grammy Awards in 1986, "Money for Nothing" won Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal and was nominated for Record of the Year and Song of the Year as well. At the 1986 MTV Video Music Awards, the music video received 11 nominations, winning Video of the Year and Best Group Video. It is considered one of the band's signature songs and the opening guitar riff is one of the most famous ever.
The sound of Sting’s "MTV" in the introduction just prior to the drum cadenza serves as the audio for MTV Entertainment Studios production credit title card.
"Money for Nothing" is a pop rock song. As per keyboardist Alan Clark, the song started as a more Stones-like track, before Knopfler came up with the song's riff while improvising to a click track in the studio. Knopfler modeled his guitar sound on ZZ Top guitarist Billy Gibbons's trademark guitar tone, as ZZ Top's music videos were already a staple of early MTV. Gibbons told Timothy White of Musician in late 1985 that Knopfler had solicited Gibbons's help in replicating the tone, adding, "He didn't do a half-bad job, either, considering that I never told him a goddamned thing!"
Following the initial sessions in Montserrat where they recorded the main guitar part, Neil Dorfsman tried to recreate the sound in subsequent sessions at the Power Station in New York but was unsuccessful.
Mark Knopfler described the writing of the song in a 1985 interview with author Bill Flanagan:
The lead character in "Money for Nothing" is a guy who works in the hardware department in a television/custom kitchen/refrigerator/microwave appliance store. He's singing the song. I wrote the song when I was actually in the store. I borrowed a bit of paper and started to write the song down in the store. I wanted to use a lot of the language that the real guy actually used when I heard him, because it was more real....
In 2000, Knopfler appeared on Parkinson on BBC One and further explained where the lyrics originated. According to Knopfler, he had visited an appliance store in New York City. At the back of the store, a wall of televisions were all tuned to MTV. Knopfler said that standing next to him, watching the TVs, there was a male employee, dressed in a baseball cap, work boots, and a checkered shirt, who was delivering boxes. As they watched MTV, the man said things like, "What are those, Hawaiian noises?... That ain't workin'," etc. Knopfler requested a pen to write some of these lines down, and eventually put them to music. The first-person narrator in the lyrics describes a musician "banging on the bongos like a chimpanzee" and a woman "stickin' in the camera - Man, we could have some fun". In the second verse, the performer is described as "that little faggot with the earring and the make-up", and the narrator bemoans that these artists get "Money for nothing and chicks for free."
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Money for Nothing
"Money for Nothing" is a song by the British rock band Dire Straits, the second track on their fifth studio album Brothers in Arms (1985). It was released as the album's second single on 28 June 1985 through Vertigo Records. The song's lyrics are written from the point of view of two working-class men watching music videos and commenting on what they see. The song features a guest appearance by Sting, who sings the signature falsetto introduction, background vocals and a backing chorus of "I want my MTV" set to the same notes as the chorus of the Police's hit "Don't Stand So Close To Me". The groundbreaking Steve Barron-directed music video, one of the first uses of computer-animated human characters, was the first to be aired on MTV Europe when the network launched on 1 August 1987.
It was Dire Straits' most commercially successful single, peaking at number one for three weeks on both the US Billboard Hot 100 and Top Rock Tracks chart and number four in the band's native UK. In July 1985, the month following its release, Dire Straits and Sting performed the song at Live Aid. At the 28th Annual Grammy Awards in 1986, "Money for Nothing" won Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal and was nominated for Record of the Year and Song of the Year as well. At the 1986 MTV Video Music Awards, the music video received 11 nominations, winning Video of the Year and Best Group Video. It is considered one of the band's signature songs and the opening guitar riff is one of the most famous ever.
The sound of Sting’s "MTV" in the introduction just prior to the drum cadenza serves as the audio for MTV Entertainment Studios production credit title card.
"Money for Nothing" is a pop rock song. As per keyboardist Alan Clark, the song started as a more Stones-like track, before Knopfler came up with the song's riff while improvising to a click track in the studio. Knopfler modeled his guitar sound on ZZ Top guitarist Billy Gibbons's trademark guitar tone, as ZZ Top's music videos were already a staple of early MTV. Gibbons told Timothy White of Musician in late 1985 that Knopfler had solicited Gibbons's help in replicating the tone, adding, "He didn't do a half-bad job, either, considering that I never told him a goddamned thing!"
Following the initial sessions in Montserrat where they recorded the main guitar part, Neil Dorfsman tried to recreate the sound in subsequent sessions at the Power Station in New York but was unsuccessful.
Mark Knopfler described the writing of the song in a 1985 interview with author Bill Flanagan:
The lead character in "Money for Nothing" is a guy who works in the hardware department in a television/custom kitchen/refrigerator/microwave appliance store. He's singing the song. I wrote the song when I was actually in the store. I borrowed a bit of paper and started to write the song down in the store. I wanted to use a lot of the language that the real guy actually used when I heard him, because it was more real....
In 2000, Knopfler appeared on Parkinson on BBC One and further explained where the lyrics originated. According to Knopfler, he had visited an appliance store in New York City. At the back of the store, a wall of televisions were all tuned to MTV. Knopfler said that standing next to him, watching the TVs, there was a male employee, dressed in a baseball cap, work boots, and a checkered shirt, who was delivering boxes. As they watched MTV, the man said things like, "What are those, Hawaiian noises?... That ain't workin'," etc. Knopfler requested a pen to write some of these lines down, and eventually put them to music. The first-person narrator in the lyrics describes a musician "banging on the bongos like a chimpanzee" and a woman "stickin' in the camera - Man, we could have some fun". In the second verse, the performer is described as "that little faggot with the earring and the make-up", and the narrator bemoans that these artists get "Money for nothing and chicks for free."