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Lyrics

Dire Straits – “Money for Nothing”

The first-person narrating character in the lyrics refers to a musician “banging on the bongos like a chimpanzee” and another female musician “stickin’ in the camera, man we could have some fun”. He describes a singer as “that little faggot with the earring and the make-up”, and bemoans that these artists get “money for nothing and chicks for free”.[3] These lyrics were criticised as being sexist, racist, and homophobic.

In a late 1984 interview in Rolling Stone magazine, Knopfler expressed mixed feelings on the controversy:

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.[4]

Dire Straits often performed the song in live concerts and when on tour, where the second verse was included but usually altered slightly. For the band’s 10 July 1985 concert (televised in the United Kingdom on The Tube on Channel 4 in January 1986[5]), Knopfler replaced the word “faggot” with “Queenie” (in this context also a term that implies homosexuality):

“See the little Queenie got the earring and the make-up” and “That little Queenie got his own jet airplane, he’s got a helicopter, he’s millionaire.”

Mötley Crüe bassist Nikki Sixx, in an interview with Blender magazine, claimed that the song is actually about his band’s excessive lifestyle, and that Knopfler heard clerks in a store commenting on Mötley Crüe videos shown on the in-store television sets.[6]

In January 2011, the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (CBSC) ruled that the unedited version of the song was unacceptable for air play on private Canadian radio stations, as it breached the Canadian Association of Broadcasters’ (CAB) Code of Ethics and their Equitable Portrayal Code.[7][8] The CBSC concluded that “like other racially driven words in the English language, ‘faggot’ is one that, even if entirely or marginally acceptable in earlier days, is no longer so.”[7] The CBSC’s proceedings came in response to a radio listener’s Ruling Request stemming from a playing of the song by CHOZ-FM in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, which in turn followed the radio listener’s dissatisfaction with the radio station’s reply to their complaint about a gay slur in the lyrics.[7][9]

Not all stations abided by this ruling; at least two stations, CIRK-FM in Edmonton[10] and CFRQ-FM in Halifax,[11] played the unedited version of “Money for Nothing” repeatedly for one hour out of protest. Galaxie, which was owned by the CBC at the time of the controversy, also continues to play the song.[12][13] On 21 January 2011, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) asked the CBSC for a review on the ban, in response to the public outcry against the CBSC’s actions; the CRTC reportedly received over 250 complaints erroneously sent to them, instead of the CBSC. The regulator requested the CBSC to appoint a nationwide panel to review the case, as the decision on the ban was reviewed by a regional panel for the Maritimes and Newfoundland.[14]

On 31 August, the CBSC reiterated that it found the slur to be inappropriate; however, because of considerations in regard to its use in context, the CBSC has left it up to the stations to decide whether to play the original or edited versions of the song. Most of the CBSC panelists thought the slur was inappropriate, but it was used only in a satirical, non-hateful manner.[15]