The story of Money for Nothing is weirder than you thought

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Published 2024-07-08

All Comments (20)
  • The publisher wanting a percentage for a melody, against the author will; for a song titled Money for nothing... Case in point!
  • I tried learning this on guitar Using Mark's finger picking style instead of a pick Guess what happened ? I got a blister on my finger & a blister on my thumb !
  • @krisoko
    Don't disrespect the graphics in the video - they're iconic, they have character, and were made 30 years before the blocky graphics of minecraft were a thing.
  • Weird Al Yankovic parodied the song and video in his movie UHF in 1989. The song is called Money for Nothing/Beverly Hillbillies. Mark Knopfler gave him permission, but only if he were allowed to play on it. When you hear it, you'll know it's him.
  • @MaxStax1
    When this song came out i was actually working at an appliance store as a appliance repairman. One of my jobs was to deliver and install microwave ovens, the above stove type, and deliver TV's when they sold them. Needless to say i loved this song!
  • 100 years in the future, kids will be asking "what's mtv" while they jam out to Money for Nothing
  • @Mrmumps-tb4no
    To anyone who doesn’t know, better help were caught selling their customers data, don’t use them
  • I’m just a drummer who has performed for 60 years. Money 4 NUTHIN’ has been one of my ALL TIME tunes to play. I play in 4 bands and 2 of them have it on their Set List. Always a Pleasure. Thanks MARK🥁🎸🥁🎸🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆
  • @algaeaqua
    I'm happy to have played a small part in this music video. I was one of the original software engineers on the Bosch FGS 4000 responsible for the animation editor. I moved to Paris in 1987 from Salt Lake City where the FGS 4000 was invented and continued to work on the animation editor. From time to time I visited London where Ian Pearson and Gavin Blair were working on the animation for Money For Nothing. The blocky extruded characters in Money For Nothing were about the best a modeler could do at the time so I began working on the Hyperspace Modeler that allowed artists with no 3D modeling experience to create freeform organic models. The rest is history 😊
  • @LeviBulger
    You missed a pretty massive part of the accidental guitar tone. The reason they thought it sounded so great was because they didn't realize there was a wah pedal in the chain that was inadvertently turned on and in a partially cocked position. It gave it a very mid-forward tone much like what Billy Gibbons would sometimes have. Without that, you don't get anywhere near the guitar tone as it was otherwise set up. When they said they couldn't replicate it afterwards, that was why. They hadn't realized for quite some time later that there was a wah pedal turned on. In fact they had already broken down all the equipment and finished recording the whole album before realizing the wah was in the mix of that particular song.
  • @lakewall3054
    When I was little my dad was a truck driver, and one day he heard this tune for the first time on the radio and it so happened he was moving a truckload of refrigerators.
  • @Zacabeb
    Of note regarding the CGI in Money for Nothing video is that the Bosch FGS-4000 video graphics system used could produce more complex graphics (though obviously still extremely primitive by today's standards) and the boxy style seemed to be a deliberate aesthetic choice. I think that because of its extreme simplicity it's aged incredibly well compared to much other CGI.
  • @drothberg3
    When this song came out, I was in graduate business school and wrote a parody called “Money for Nothing/I Want My MBA.”
  • The song was an anthem for people selling HiFi in the 80s. And the thrill of that guitar riff played loud sold a lot of systems. Fond memories.
  • @michaelg.294
    Can you imagine being that guy who worked in the appliance store, one day hearing and seeing Money For Nothing while at work, and realizing "Wait a tick, that sounds like something I'd say!"
  • And one additional story – from the Hungarian point of view – regarding the music video itself: The two additional music videos in the video (at 1::50 and 3::00 in the official music video) were taken in Budapest while Dire Straits were touring in Hungary. The director, Steve Barron – knowing that Knopfler isn't into music videos at all – traveled to Budapest to convince Mark about the concept of the music video. According to reports, Mark was not at all impressed with Barrett traveling so much for him. So here is how it happened that the first ever Hungarian pop band having been shown on MTV (in the later award winning Dire Straits video) was the pop group "Első Emelet" ("First Floor" in English). In the other video (Ian Pearson Band) you see a Hungarian model-actress and yes, the fictional band was named after one of the CGI artists of this masterpiece.
  • @JudeOneThree
    The alterations and omissions of this song’s 2nd verse represent one of the earlier examples of cancel culture before there was a cancel culture.