Why I like "Money for nothing" despite its problematic lyrics.

 

OK so some people are likely wondering why I love Dire straits so much, particularly their biggest hit "Money for nothing" which contains the word faggot used throughout the second verse (I'm part of the LGBT community and thus can use that word.) Below is a picture I took of my copy of Fred Bronsons the Billboard book of number 1 hits (2003 edition) where Bronson writes a detailed article on how even upon its initial release, this song caused quite a bit of controversy back in the day because of the offensive word that seems to be completely out of place on a song that's meant to be about embracing MTV and how the times are changing.

I won't reiterate what is mentioned in the article as I feel the commentary speaks for itself, but what I will add is that while the second verse seems rather unnecessary compared to the rest of the song, I don't find it particularly homophobic as it's obvious that the narrator of this song is meant to be an out of touch boomer (or whatever they were called back then) trying to wrap their head around how times were changing and that they were looking more like the fool the longer they tried to resist the positive changes not just in the music industry but the world at large was taking place at the time.

Even ignoring the problematic verse, which the radio frequently cuts out to this day, the song is simply fantastic thanks to a killer instrumental as well as Mark's deadpan vocals that I feel do an excellent job in conveying the message that change is good and that we should retire the outdated stereotypes that permeated prior to the release of MTV. I write this post more because as these outdated stereotypes seem to be making a comeback in modern times, I feel that bashing a song that clearly had good intentions from the mid 80's (regardless of whether you believe they were executed well or not) isn't going to do anything to sway the opinions of those who unfortunately hold these toxic beliefs.

That said, if you find you can't get into this song from the band then fear not, the album it comes from Brothers in arms has a ton of other great songs and showcases the band arguably at their best. Even if you don't want to support an album with this track on it, you still have the rest of their catalogue which also lives up to the hype oldies stations have given these guys over the years (Love over gold and their self-titled debut immediately spring to mind in this regard, but Making movies and even their final album On every street are very good as well.)

Bottom line, these guys weren't homophobic, they just had a single verse in their catalogue which accidentally appeals to the homophobic crowd which shouldn't be enough of a reason to retroactively cancel them as even back then, many stations would edit out said verse. If you really want to cancel someone for being a homophobic prick in the music industry, there are plenty of modern pop stars who seem to thrive in the industry for their toxic viewpoints (Kid rock and Nicki Minaj immediately spring to mind) so I would put my energy into deplatforming them over boycotting this ultimately harmless song released before many of us were even born.