Dire Straits was one of the shining stars of the British rock scene in the 1980s. After their chart-topping debut single ‘Sultans of Swing,’ they’ve managed to stay on top of their peak and made hits one after another like ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ ‘Private Investigations,’ ‘Twisting by the Pool’ and many more.
In 1985, they entered a tiny recording studio on the island of Montserrat and began preparing for their fifth album, ‘Brothers In Arms.’ Mark Knopfler had already written all the songs before entering the studio. So, some ideas for this album were already forming in his mind. Firstly, he was striving for a better sound quality on this album, and they would use technology to reach it.
Secondly, he wanted to collaborate with Sting, whom he had seen in commercials. Mark saw the members of The Police on ‘I Want My MTV’ camping, and he had a song in his mind that he thought would sound great with Sting’s voice. He was also musically inspired by their 1980 release, ‘Don’t Stand So Close to Me.’
Sting ended up collaborating with Knopfler for ‘Money For Nothing,’ which would become one of the band’s hits. It is considered one of the greatest songs of Dire Straits in terms of musical background. Besides its strength, ‘Money For Nothing’ has an exciting story woven with ‘accidents.’
Knopfler was one of the carriers of the song, with his solid and stunning riffs, as in the band’s other songs. However, when these strong riffs were accompanied by an ‘accident,’ the song’s sound got even better. Knopfler started tuning his guitar, wanting to capture the ‘ZZ Top‘ sound in his head.
The instruments and microphones were not specially arranged when he started to play ‘Money For Nothing.’ They were right where they were left ‘by chance’ the night before. Knopfler used Les Paul and a Laney amplifier in this song. While trying to adjust the sound of his guitar, the position of the microphone and amplifier caused static. The output sound was ‘amazing,’ and they added it to the song without touching it. This was the first accident.
As for the second accident involving Sting, an inadvertently sung melody and songwriting credits were given out of necessity. When they invited Sting to sing, he didn’t turn down the offer. He was in Montserrat at the time and went to the studio. They started recording ‘Money For Nothing.’ When the time for the opposing verse ‘I want my MTV’ came, Sting accidentally reused the melody from ‘Don’t Stand So Close to Me.’ The song was done, released, and well-received.
The lawyers for Sting didn’t get involved until this story was told to journalists during the ‘Brothers In Arms’ album’s promotion, and later versions of the CD co-credited Sting with the song. The first copies only included Knopfler, while the later copies co-credit the song to Sting. There is something else even more interesting. When one looks at Dire Straits’ discography, one can only see two instances of shared songwriting credits on Dire Straits albums. And one of those instances is this, the ‘accidental’ one.
