Money for Nothing

I’m not a Dire Straits fan, but this malicious little ditty is a masterpiece. Musically it is quite interesting, a catchy tune and extremely well played. But it is the lyric that is so disturbing. DS has captured perfectly the rage and frustration of the dispossessed, the exploited and the helpless. They satirize the vicious anger and poisonous envy that is directed at them (not DS specifically, but to the entire artistic community, or more specifically, the entertainers the warehouse navvies somehow have confused with a ruling elite) and the undercurrents of sex, money, power, and even homophobia and misogyny that makes it up.
Dire Straits has composed an anthem of sympathy for the underdogs of the working class, and they have disguised it as an attack on its short-sightedness, its barely repressed violence, and its unwholesome and infinite hatred. But is not an attack. It recognizes them while lamenting their helplessness and confusion. The loading dock rats that inspire the tune have no political awareness, no understanding of what has happened to them, no appreciation of the conditions that led to their agony, no recognition of who their true class enemies are; so they pour their bile out on rock musicians. What a waste, what a masterpiece of pointless misdirection.
The rock stars get the money, the girls, the easy jobs; it’s all their fault. They are the ones to blame. Perhaps they are the ones who should be punished? Who taught them this? How did this all get so turned around? Dire Straits isn’t a particularly “political” band but they hit this nail right on the head. There’s a lot of hatred out there, looking for vengeance in all the wrong places.
Remember the movie “Joe” from a few years back, the one with a young Peter Boyle in one of the most powerful dramatic performances of the 60s? Or the film “Taxi Driver” with De Niro? These characters, like the workers in “Money for Nothing”, lash out tragically and brutally, but they are victims too. And the artist can see this, and respond to it.
This is good music, and it is great art, and I think we can be proud to have lived in an age where it was not only produced, but where it was distributed to and accepted by a vast public. Let’s just hope it reaches enough of us and is understood by enough of us, to make a difference. But even if it fails as propaganda or journalism or politics, it has succeeded as art. DS knew exactly what they were doing, and they cared enough to do it. They deserve credit for that. And times like this deserve great art.