ayo dire straits headz tell me is it some kinda randy newman character thing when dude says faggots

Apparently most of the song is based on a conversation Knopfler overheard two delivery drivers having, so yeah, partly

Ie, the point of the song is that it _isn't_ easy being a rock star, despite what poor people might think.

Also it's fun to bang on the bongos like a chimpanzee.

Any guesses as to who's being referred to?

George Michael, according to Google.

Here's a thing: http://www.seattleweekly.com/2008-07-02/music/mark-knopfler-a-bigger-gay-icon-than-george-michael/

That article's absolutely terrible.

That song's absolutely terrible.

It is a rotten song. They were a pretty rotten band, generally. Did I ever tell you about the time I farted next to their keyboard player? Probably 20 times already, yeah, yeah.

That article, oh boy:

It breaks my heart when people confuse him with fellow finger-picking Brit Richard Thompson (Thompson's great, but Knopfler's better).

o_0

That is the worst article ever written.

Knopfler's "Romeo & Juliet" is a passionate ballad named after a Shakespearean tragedy, and very few things are gayer than Shakespeare.

"That guy's messing with our minds! Let's get out of here!"

Thompson's great, but Knopfler's better

Gumph!

That song's absolutely terrible.

-- Tom D., Thursday, July 31, 2008 10:19 AM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

It is a rotten song. They were a pretty rotten band, generally. Did I ever tell you about the time I farted next to their keyboard player? Probably 20 times already, yeah, yeah.

-- Pashmina, Thursday, July 31, 2008 10:28 AM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

gtfo of my thread faggots

i like this band but don't like this song. but "faggots" is used from the narrator's point of view randy newman style.

gtfo of my thread faggots

-- and what, Thursday, 31 July 2008 14:32 (31 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

^ "faggots" is used from the narrator's point of view randy newman style.

People who don't like Dire Straits don't understand music.

Top five DS jams:

Your Latest Trick
Lady Writer
Romeo and Juliet
Love Over Gold
Sultans of Swing

Did I ever tell you about the time I farted next to their keyboard player?

I haven't heard this, do tell.

Sultans of Swing

classic rock radio jam 4 all time

"Money for Nothing" ain't the first time Knopfler's written "from the point of view" of a fag basher.

yeah someone listed that on the 500 bad chart songs and i wanted to punch them but there was so much rong on that thread anyways

people who hate dire straits are the same type of people that hate steely dan i think

Mark Knopfler is what happens when 'tasteful guitarist' eases ever so subtly into 'sedative guitarist.'

people who hate dire straits are the same type of people that hate steely dan i think

A joke, I hope? When did Steely Dan ever produced an abortion like "Walk of Life"?

Les boys do cabaret
Les boys are glad to be gay
They're not afraid now
Disco bar in Germany
Les boys are glad to be
Upon parade now

Les boys got leather straps
Les boys got SS caps
But they got no gun now
Get dressed up get a little risque
Got to do a little s & m these days
Its all in fun now

Les boys come on again
For the high class whores
And the businessmen
Who drive in their Mercedes Benz
To a disco bar in old Munchen

They get the jokes that the d.j. makes
They get nervous and they make mistakes
They're bad for business
Some tourist take a photograph
Les boys don't get one laugh
He says they're useless

Late at night when they're gone away
Les boys dream of Jean Genet
High heel shoes and a black beret
And the posters on the wall that say
Les boys do cabaret
Les boys are glad to be gay

Dire Straits are better than Steely Dan as a radio act, possibly also as an albums band.

A radio act? Like Punt and Dennis or something?

people who hate fun need their own board. oh wait...

I really hate this band.

I like a few Dire Straits songs (Lady Writer, Down to the Waterline, stuff like that), but when they're bad, they're awful.

I don't mind them really, apart from "Money For Nothing" and "Walk of Life", tho I haven't actually heard one of their albums all the way thru. Knopfler's vocals = shockingly bad Dylanesque shite however. Amusing that they seem to be fairly popular on ILM!

this is not a thread to hate on dire straits, this is a thread for dire straits headz tell me is it some kinda randy newman character thing when dude says faggots

It is

i'd been wondering this myself, didn't know about the george michael thing

There are a few subtle hints that the song is written in character. For example, rich and famous rock stars seldom have day jobs as appliance installers.

does that word tend to get bleeped on the radio?

That song is clearly "in character." Les Boys is another story though. He's a true musical conservative, but he's written about a dozen superduper classics, most recently What It Is.

ayo king crimson headz, wtf about this?

Health-food faggot with a bartered bride
Likes to comb his hair with a dipper ride
Once had a friend with a cloven foot
Once he called the tune in a chequered quit
Great Deceiver

TS, Randy Newman Edition:::: ~
Mark Knopfler vs W. Axl Rose

That's right.

is this money for nothing? the royal trux version of it's one of the best things they ever did.

Oh man, I forgot, Sting sings on this shit too

does that word tend to get bleeped on the radio?

Not that I know of. The album version is what gets played on classic rock radio here in the states. Some adult contemporary stations dig out the single version (which omits the verse w/the offending line entirely) from time to time.

i've been jamming "So Far Away" (1st song off this record) LIKE CRAZY lately... on repeat for hours.

they play the line on the radio all the time.

also weird: how it's somehow okay for the who to say "who the FUCK are you!" on "who are you", i hear that on FM radio all the time.

We've lost the "fuck" from "Who Are You" somewhat recently. Also MIA: "ass" from "Sweet Emotion", "shit" from "Jet Airliner", & "god damn" from both "Sweet Home Alabama" and "The Pusher" (which makes for pretty sparse listening in the latter case). Still at large: "god damn" from "She's So Cold".

You should hear what our local rock station did to "Walk on the Wild Side".

i've been jamming "So Far Away" (1st song off this record) LIKE CRAZY lately... on repeat for hours.

MY favorite DS song.

Also: our very own Dom has a terrific piece on Brothers in Arms.

yeah classic rock vs. urban radio operate on totally different policies as far as censoring expletives or letting them fly. you could bring in the usual racism/rockism suspects but also hey 1 or 2 swears per song or a dozen in every verse are kinda different deals.

it's funny what rock songs DO get censored to shreds, though. a local alt-station pretty much ruined the Violent Femmes' "Add It Up" with the incredibly awkward edit they used to play all the time.

Money for nothing's intro is awesome, sting n all. It's just when knopfler starts up with this weedy shitty little guitar sound that it goes wrong, and keeps going wrong.

dude the guitar tone is the best thing about the whole song

dude the guitar tone is the best thing about the whole song

^^^

on the original question, i think it's not quite a randy newman thing because randy newman's offensive-character thing is always clearly an indictment (even when he's implicating himself, like on "rednecks"). knopfler sounds sorta sympathetic to the delivery guys, which would be fine except for how much the delivery guy and knopfler both really enjoy saying "faggot."

The new Rolling Stone has an extensive Knopfler interview in which, besides publicizing his erudition, he insists that he's compassionate and loves writing "in character."

like the character of the guy who got dumped by holly beth vincent.

lol max i love how you stay on message wrt dadrock. <3

[Drum roll. Scott enters. The word "FAGGOT" appears over his head.]
Scott: What is it about the word "faggot" that makes people so frightened? Do you think it's the actual letters, themselves? Well, let's take a look at that.

Do you think maybe it's the letter "F"? I don't think so, because "F" stands for fun. And, we all love to have fun, don't we?

Maybe it's that naughty "A." Now, I can't believe that for one second, because "A" is what we all want to bring home from school.

Well then, maybe it's those double "G"s. How could that be? We all love twins. I love that Doublemint ad.

Maybe it's the "O." Well, you might as well get mad at a donut.

You know what? I bet--I bet it's that evil "T," because it reminds people of Christ's agony on the cross.

Well, I've got the perfect solution. Let's get rid of the "T" and all the hate that goes with it. So, come on faggos, let's sing! Everybody! Come on all you faggos!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxblJKOJ5Nw

someones got to do it hs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kh1WJF-9rKU

the song is about a blue collar dude's attitude to duran duran basically right? it's clear the attitude isn't exactly knopfler's but he's not exactly in duran duran's corner either

Wasn't it Twisted Sister in the video? Not that they're worlds apart from Duran Duran.

Ain't no bongos in Twisted Sister.

Do Duran Duran (or George Michael) (well, Wham! then, I guess) have bongos? I always imagined it was about some cross between Haircut 100 and Boy George, but I'm not positive they have bongoes either.

The line "I Want My, I Want My MTV" is sung by Sting to the tune of "Dont' Stand So Close To Me" by the Police. Barry Walters wrote in the Voice at the time that that meant the song was saying "don't stand so close to faggots," but I never bought that.

Excellent guitar riff, either way.

attitude isn't exactly knopfler's but he's not exactly in duran duran's corner either

Yeah -- "Sultans of Swing" had sort of a theme that was related, at least: "Crowd of young boys they're fooling around in the corner/Drunk and dressed in their best brown baggies and their platform soles/They don't give a damn about any trumpet playing band/It ain't what they call rock and roll."

'Club Tropicana' has bongos, so the George Michael theory fits. No bongos in the video though.

All I could think of is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSq8ZBdSxNU

Bongos be bangin' at 3:42... not really like a chimpanzee though.

Perhaps 'bongos' was chosen for assonance in combination with 'banging' and faux-racist lulz (cf: 'chimpanzee') rather than any actual specific track with literal bongo playing on it.

"bangin' on the bongos like a chimpanzee" vs "playing on that drumset without dignity"

Which is more evocative?

T/S: Thunderstruck intro vs. Money For Nothing intro

Everything about this song is great, except that Sting got half the royalties for coming up with that line. He recently admitted to being embarrassed about it (while drinking diamonds from a golden bucket)

the accent in "dignity" falls more strongly on its first syllable and pop lyrics weren't yet lame enough for people to pronounce it "dignity" to force the rhyme

/crankyscansionfascist

Mark Knopfler and Nick Lowe, those guys have it made: money in the bank, songs at the convenience store, and now they're writing some of their best songs without having to gussie them up for the radio. That Notting Hillbillies record is one of my favorite. Other stuff, not bad at all.

J0hn, what song is that line even from? Sultans?

I'll always have a soft spot for Dire Straits b/c I saw Mark Knopfler on some PBS music show, like Austin City Limits or something, several years ago, and at one point he busted into some ambient-ish thing that sounded more like Mark Hollis

Also, I unapologetically love most folks who crib Dylan's vocal style

Mark Knopfler and Nick Lowe, those guys have it made: money in the bank, songs at the convenience store, and now they're writing some of their best songs without having to gussie them up for the radio.

You don't meant that corpose of a record Lowe released last summer?

That one is slight but good, but The Convincer is a diamond geezer.

*corpse, of course.

If this song is hostile, it is hostile towards people with low education, moderate wages and boring jobs rather than towards homosexuals.

Thank you, William Bennett.

i don't really see that there's that much hostility in money for nothing. i imagine knopfler just overheard a funny conversation and ran with it. the delivery dudes in question would likely lump dire straits in the same camp with the faggoty bongo-banging chimps. kind of like when my grandfather would run across MTV in it's nascent years. he wasn't really distinguishing between prince and journey and rick springfield; it was just a bunch of prancing nitwits in weird clothes playing weird music.

WHICH IT WAS

hells yeah

A tension best captured in the video for Ratt's "Round and Round".

re "bongos" wasn't new wave/new pop going thru it's burundi beat phase at this point?

my friend in college once related a story about him playing the "reflex" single repeatedly, to the point where his dad went over to the turntable and removed it and smashed it against the wall

flex-flex-flex

It is possible that he was writing about something general-- effete rock'n'rollers with lots of dough, and the people who resent them-- instead of someone specific?

i've always been curious about the band First Floor and their song "baby, baby" (the "little faggots" and their song in the "money for nothing" video) -- has anyone ever heard it, or is it just something made up for the video?!?

also, aren't the video dudes in the song supposed to be based on jackie gleason and art carney? or is that just me?!?

my friend in college once related a story about him playing the "reflex" single repeatedly, to the point where his dad went over to the turntable and removed it and smashed it against the wall

your friend's dad OTM

An answer with no question mark whatsoever.

Years ago friend of mine went to see some guy - can't remember who, probably someone like Keith Richards - and Knopfler got on stage to jam with him. They jam, trading 'licks', for what seems like hours, making my friend and his pals really angry. After the show, my friend and his mates are standing on a pedestrian bridge to the second story of the building, overlooking the car park, and suddenly they see Knopfler underneath! He's walking under the bridge! 'Hey Mark' one of them shouts, 'You suck!'. Mark sees what's up and starts to run. Plotting his vectors carefully, one of my friend's pals gobs! It seems to hit Mark as he runs underneath - and then Knopfler turns around, flips them the bird with both hands, crouches on his knees and goes 'Breeeeeurgh' disparagingly before running off into the night. 'Haha, Knopfler, you f---ing drongo!' my friend and his pals jeer at his disappearing figure. This I was told.

great story

I 'member on that Prince's Trust LP, Knopfler substituted "queenie" for "faggot," so as to not offend the monarchy.

The line "I Want My, I Want My MTV" is sung by Sting to the tune of "Dont' Stand So Close To Me" by the Police. Barry Walters wrote in the Voice at the time that that meant the song was saying "don't stand so close to faggots,"...

-- xhuxk, Thursday, July 31, 2008 7:55 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Link

I was coming here to post that. I can't believe I still remember that review after all these years.

Is there a thread for the stupidest things ever said by a rock critic?

I hate Dire Straits. There's a reason why the honorable John Peel was embarassed to admit he liked "Sultans of Swing". I agreed with him totally.

I don't care if they said "faggot" in what is a stupid ass, intolerably bad song to begin with. Fuck Knopfler and fuck them.

it could be because i heard it as "his own affair" rather than "his own hair", but i always thought that, not only was this absolutely a character thing, but also that said character was betraying a grudging respect, and even admiration, for said little faggot - i mean, he's got his own jet airplane for christ's sake, he's got it all figured out, right? - and that therefore this verse was actually a step forward for delivery guy/little faggot relations.

i could be wrong though. is he really saying "his own hair"?

Look at those builders - that's the way to do it
Renovating houses in Brunswick East
Beats rockin' - I should get into it
Money for working and your van for free
Those guys aren't hip, never went to uni
It must be easy to be dumb
Maybe get a blister on your little finger
Maybe get a blister on your thumb

We've got to conduct telephone surveys
Wash dishes, part-time data-entry
We've got to pay our last tour off
We got to be at sound check by three

See that bogan with the ladder and the toolkit?
Triple M blaring out of his car
That bogan rents us our practice room
That bogan he's a millionaire

We've got to conduct telephone surveys
Hydroponic delivery
We got to pay our credit cards off
We got to warehouse these DVDs

I should have learned to put up houses
I should have wagged it at rock'n'roll high
They get a paycheck the size of my tour grant
They get it every month until they die
They own McMansions in the outer suburbs
I rent a bedroom in Brunswick East
You can't download repairs to your plumbing
Their customers aren't on a free list

We catch the 8am tram to the warehouse
Work all day moving other bands' CDs
We got to find a mate's car to borrow
We got to lug our amps in by three

Hahaha what the fuck is that?

http://spill-label.org/nw/nw.php

wow, that looks like a lot of fun

"is this money for nothing? the royal trux version of it's one of the best things they ever did"

the most otm thing on this thread

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/canada-lifts-ban-on-dire-straits-money-for-nothing-20110901