Mark Knopfler says that luck played a part in the creation of Dire Straits’ classic hit Money For Nothing — not once but twice.
“There were a whole bunch of fortunate incidents that collided with each other to create the song,” Knopfler says in an interview with The Guardian.
He talks about how the theme of the song’s lyrics were directly inspired by a conversation he overheard in a New York store.
“There was a big bonehead in there delivering gear,” he says. “All the TVs were tuned to MTV and I overheard this guy sounding off about the rock stars on the screens… and some of his lines were just too good to be true.
“Things like: 'That little motherfucker’s got his own jet airplane!' And: 'He’s banging on the bongos like a chimpanzee!' And: 'That ain’t working!'
“That was just the way he spoke – and in that New York accent too.
“The bells were going off in my head but I didn’t have a pen with me, so I borrowed one, got a bit of paper and I actually sat down in the window display area of the store and started writing out the lines to Money For Nothing as he said them.”
The other major stroke of luck came during the recording of the Brothers In Arms album at AIR Studios on the Caribbean island of Montserrat.
Money For Nothing had an intro lifted from another famous ’80s hit, and as Knopfler recalls: “I’d seen The Police on the MTV channel saying the phrase: ‘I want my MTV.’ But they also had a song called Don’t Stand So Close To Me, so I put ‘I want my MTV’ to that melody and included it at the start.
“While we were recording the Brothers In Arms album at AIR Studios on Montserrat, I remember thinking: ‘Wouldn’t it be great if I could ask Sting to sing that line?’
“We were on this tiny speck in the middle of the ocean but suddenly someone said: ‘Sting’s here on holiday! He’s on the beach!’"
Sting duly contributed his vocal part for the intro. And with that, a rock classic was born.
However, ex-Dire Straits keyboard player Alan Clark remembers it differently.
In a 2022 interview with MusicRadar, Clark stated: “My esteemed and much-loved fellow band member John Illsley, in his book Brothers in Arms - My Life in Dire Straits, he mentions it was Mark Knopfler’s idea to include the line ‘I Want My MTV’. Entirely forgivable. It was 36 years ago…
“But it wasn’t Mark’s idea.
“In rehearsals when Mark first played Money For Nothing to the band, there was no intro and no ‘I Want My MTV’.
"It started with an early version of that guitar riff.
“During a break in rehearsals, when most of the band were out of the room, I started creating the intro on my keyboards, singing ‘I Want My MTV’.
“By the end of the day, the track had an intro. That’s the short version.
“For the record: the idea was mine.”
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