The story of Money for Nothing is weirder than you thought

The Story Of Money for Nothing is weird and one that involves many happy accidents whether that's microphones not over during recording that led to this legendary guitar sound or sting just happening to be on the same Caribbean island when they were recording and quoting one of his songs but perhaps the weirdest thing is just what this song is about it's a song about two salesmen selling microwave ovens and kitchens the song was written when Mark Kno was in a hardware store in New York and in the store were a number of TV tuned into MTV Mark overheard a couple of workers commenting on the music videos and joking that these musicians were making millions of dollars essentially not doing any work it was in New York and it was in a kitchen appliance store microwaves or you know C and things like that and then at the back of the store was a big wall of televisions all all tuned to MTV there was some bonehead who worked for the store at so he was watching MTV and he was saying all these great lines about you know that ain't working you know that's the way you do it Mark thought this was just a brilliant idea for a song especially with him being one of these musicians making a lot of money from music I just thought it was so classic that uh I went and asked for a pen and paper and um started writing the lines down you know but it's also true that Mark felt some sympathy for these guys Mark wasn't a fan of music videos either thinking that they took away from the purity of musicians what's so great about this song is that it perfectly sums up how Mark was feeling about MTV but rather than writing something something that would come off as a self-important rant by stumbling upon these two guys having a conversation he was able to present it in a more creative and humorous way in the song Mark and sting play these two characters working in the hardware store Mark is a brilliant Storyteller in his songw writing both in die Straits and as a solo artist but I love how money for nothing retains the spirit of these two guys having a conversation about MTV and rock stars Mark's reluctance to sell out to the music video Trend meant the DI traits could have been left behind by the changing musical times they hadn't achieved a hit as successful as their debut Sultans of Swing and they were starting to get stuck in the Rut of critically acclaimed rock radio Grinders thankfully a song Like Money for Nothing was just what they needed and for the guitar obsessed band struggling to hop on a trend this song about MTV would ironically feature one of the most iconic guitar Rifts of all [Music] time it would be impossible to talk about the song without talking about the incredible guitari which is the foundation of this song those of you who know Mark noo will know he's well known for mostly playing finger style many guitarists of course especially on electric guitar use a pck and so Mark by playing with his fingers is able to take influence from many styles of music you know that's so you [Music] get it's easy to think that it's the sound of the guitar that is so distinctive about this riff but no it's from Mark's technique nler took what's essentially a banjo rooll you know that kind of [Music] yeah and if you hear it played without the overdrive you can really hear the distinctive style in Mark's [Music] playing that is so but the guitar does also have a very specific tone one that he was searching for but also came about by accident all of the songs on the album were written and rehearsed prior to the recording process so when they entered the studio the band knew the songs well but the producers and the engineers were hearing them for the first time played live rather than from demos the album was recorded at air studios in Monster Rat a very small studio with limited space and sound I ation Neil Dorman the album's engineer and producer said generally when I record I like to record close and have some ambient stuff as well some distant mics on guitars the drums whatever but you couldn't really do that there everything had to be close miked and quite heavily baffled which was not a style that I liked when it came to recording money for nothing this limited space made things difficult Mark was trying to replicate the sound of zezy top guitarist Billy Gibbons but when it came to recording the guitar part the microphone setup was all messed up they must have been knocked over or moved the previous day One mic was pointing at the floor another was not quite on the speaker another was somewhere else noticing what happened Mark went over to try and properly set up the microphones but the engineer said don't touch a thing it's perfect the sound was so close to what they were looking for that none of it was altered in the mixing process afterwards later on when they were working on the album in another Studio they tried to replicate the sound with the exact same equipment but they can never get that exact sound that happened by accident the other notable Edition which really completes this song is Sting dueting on vocals Mark already had this line I Want My MTV which at the time was MTV's slogan I Want My MTV I Want My MTV I Want My MTV he had the idea to put it to The Melody of don't stand so close to me by the police I'd seen on MTV um the police doing an ad for it and I thought well if I stick that to don't stand so close to me those notes that would fit well it just so happened that sting would often visit monserat and happened to be there when D trits were recording this album we were recording money for nothing and and I said to somebody I wish sting was here and and somebody said well he is here he's on holiday and I said oh great I'd get him up here and CU I can hear him singing on this thing sting came up to the studio and and we already had the the track in place so he just sang it sting sang his I Want My MTV line as well as some other vocals turning this song into the duet it needed to be it may seem like a small Edition but it completely authenticates the original conversation between the two workers in the hardware store it takes the song from one guy ranting about something into this back and forth conversation between Mark and sting it wasn't all good news however because virgin music stings publisher own the rights to the melody on don't stand so close to me they realized that sting was singing their Melody on Money for Nothing despite Sting's reluctance they demanded he'd be given a co-writing credit and therefore could claim a percentage of the song's profit the final part of the puzzle was the music video how on Earth do you come up with a music video for a song making fun of MTV by a band that doesn't even like making music videos anyway Mark just wanted a video of the band playing guitar not something out of character I mean just look how often a guitar appears on their album covers MTV however insisted that they come up with an actual video and after a meeting between Mark and Steve Baron MTV's director Mark agreed that there weren't enough interesting videos and this could be an opportunity to come up with something original the result was an early example of 3D computer animation something that doesn't look so impressive today but was groundbreaking at the time the video was a huge success winning video of the year at the 1986 and MTV Music Video Awards But as time has gone by the song and its accompanying video have different legacies Money for Nothing demonstrated some breakthroughs both for the music industry but also for D traits as a band as well as the success of the video it was one of the first albums to be released on CD and the first CD to sell over a million copies taking D Straits to International stardom co-producer and engineer Neil dman said of the album I actually didn't expect the record to do what it did I knew the band was very popular but no one ever thought the album would turn out to be so huge sting also didn't think it would be such a hit Trudy said to me you know that's that's going to be such a huge hit I said I don't know that's okay of course it was the biggest hit of that year so I was very uh very proud to have been on that but it purely a function of just being in the right place at the right time as for the video well the computer animations don't look great by today's standards almost childish but perhaps more notably MTV is no longer what it once was the song however still sounds great perhaps marks understanding of the purity of music is something that has proven true thank you so much for watching if you made it this far please take a moment to subscribe [Music]

Channel: David Hartley

Views: 134,591

Keywords: dire straits, mark knopfler, money for nothing, brothers in arms

Id: AHJj25PBIhg

Length: 8min 52sec (532 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 08 2024