I'm not an expert guitar player, sorry. I wish I could teach you something of the subtleties of Mark Knopfler's "fingerstyle" manner of playing. I'll just settle on telling you, hey guys, the guitarist in this band doesn't play with a pick! He does all these crazy things with his fingers plucking the strings, something similarly to what folk and classical guitarists do all the time for their delicate little pieces, not something you usually associate with electric rock and roll.
Without this song, I don't think the '80s would have technically existed. We'd just call the span between the '70s and '90s "that time."
Most people go straight to the iconic music video for this song, an absolute peak of MTV creativity, groundbreaking in so many ways. The video is fine.
But music only, what a great construction this song is! The build that starts everything off is so excellent, the drum accents especially, and it all pays off perfectly with the entrance of "The Riff." That riff is so massive that it alone causes this song to make my list. It's one of those riffs that guitar students simply must be able produce on demand to be worthy of proper regard.
The lyrics are in the voice of a working class guy watching television. They are highly controversial for their use of gay slurs.
Here is Knopfler's explanation:
"The singer in 'Money for Nothing' is a real ignoramus, hard hat mentality – somebody who sees everything in financial terms. I mean, this guy has a grudging respect for rock stars. He sees it in terms of, well, that's not working and yet the guy's rich: that's a good scam. He isn't sneering."
I have read far, far more graphic language from unlikable characters in my modest swath of novel and poetry consumption, so I find it hard to get too upset about this. Further, as a sensitive kid who grew up and played music in North Dakota, I had far too many experiences with guys addressing me in far more aggressive ways than this little vignette portrays. Maybe because of those experiences especially, I view these lyrics more as documentary expression than any kind of explosive insensitivity. I'm sure Knopfler had many similar interactions.
I think people who attack artists for expressing difficult details in human relations are of a closer mentality to the narrator of this song than they want to believe. They seem to misunderstand artistic motives based on more common, materialistic assumptions. I'm going to tell you that most artists just want to do what they do best - perceive and report.
Getting past all that, this song's lyrics and ridiculously showy guitar go hand in hand, intentionally setting the narrator's small-mindedness over the transcendent talent and passion taking place in the music. I think most people assume that music - or any of the human arts for that matter - are "easy" pursuits that anyone can pick up if they cared enough to do them. In fact, even the simplest musical performance and songwriting requires a kind of trance and insight, not to mention workmanship, that most will simply not sit still for. It is a special calling. And yet here we are, 30 year after "Money For Nothing" was released, and musicians are forced to smile off the theft of their songs via file sharing, because so many take for granted the visionary powers being brought to bear to produce this essential infrastructure of our Earthly experience.
It's not the financial diminishment per se that hurts; it's the assumption that great artistic achievements are easy, thus worthless. "Money" - who cares. But "For Nothing"?
Cue The Riff!