“Money for Nothing,” the 1985 song from British group Dire Straits, and written by Mark Knopfler and Sting, will no longer be allowed on Canadian airwaves in its uncensored form thanks to the lyric “that little faggot with the earring and the make-up,” which the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council has, twenty-six years later, deemed too offensive. Also offensive: that line about “banging on the bongos like a chimpanzee.” Oh, and the whole misogynistic tone of the entire song? After the song came out, told Rolling Stone about the controversy, “Apart from the fact that there are stupid gay people as well as stupid other people, it suggests that maybe you can’t let it have so many meanings – you have to be direct.”
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Canada Won’t Let Dire Straits Sing About ‘That Little Faggot With The Earring’ Anymore
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EdWoody
This is no big deal – even the writers of the song have disavowed that line long ago.
Neil
Whatevs. The song can be read a bunch of ways, but the common understanding, at least as I take it, is that it’s the Dire Strait’s writer’s take on what he overheard some worker at some store or loading dock say when watching the band on TV. The lyrics come right from this dude’s mouth, and although the story is probably not known to most people who sing it and yes people probably get off on singing “faggot” with the song — there it is anyway, just like people waving their hands in the air and singing “She’s homeless! She’s homeless!” to the Crystal Waters song. Censor it if you must, but it’s real. Apparently, Daniel Waters got most of his dialogue for “Heathers” from listening to his sister babble to her friends on the phone when he was a kid — so the truth can be spun into gold and still hurt. Life, baby.
rrr
I’m Canadian. I never heard the word “faggot” included in the radio or music video version of the song in Canada back in the 80s or since. I guess the CBSC is making it official now.
Dick
Sometimes people just don’t get that it’s the words of a character singing that song. Those are the words of a not so smart guy who works selling electronic appliances. Next they’ll ban Randy Newman’s song Rednecks for the N word and the line “smart ass New York Jew. The ones being made fun of are the dimwit characters who’s voice is the lyric of the song.
Thomas Marx
And I guess I’m the bad guy. At the time the song was popular, I was a waiter at Pizza Hut. The song would play fairly regularly on our jukebox. As someone who listens to the lyrics and is reasonably intelligent, I knew exactly what the song meant. But it still bothered me to hear a song singing about fagots while I served pizza. It’s one thing to know what Dire Straits was saying with the song, it’s another to hear the song so many times that you started dreading that fucking line.
I finally asked the manager if she could get the song taken off the jukebox. I apologized to her for being so lame, but I really had started hating that fucking song and Dire Straits because of that damn word. The next time the guy came in to service the machine, he replaced the record with something else. I was so thankful, and to this day, I will change radio stations when that song starts playing (although I am a huge fan of “Walk of Life” and “Romeo and Juliet”).
I don’t like when songs are bleeped. I think Alannis should be allowed to go down on her boyfriend in the theater, just as Pink should be allowed to tell people they are fucking perfect. But things like that offend some people, so I deal with the fact that pretty much everything Eminem releases to the radio will have major moments of silence.
So why is it so hard to believe that some people might be offended by hearing the word fagot over and over again while they’re waiting tables? I don’t give a shit about the fine nuances and irony. Say “that little nigger with the earring and the make-up” and then get all huffy when someone complains.
I don’t like the word fagot. Someone called me a fagot in a nightclub in Cincinnati one time, and I turned to look at him and loudly said, “Duh!” The fucking coward didn’t say anything else. If I don’t accept someone trying to put me down in real life because I love sucking dick, I sure as hell won’t accept it on a pop song, no matter how well-crafted it might be.
So I guess that makes me a stupid gay.
I can live with that.
Danny
Canada has gay marriage, gay soldiers, human rights protections, AND standards. Go Canada.
jason
It might well be a song about a conversation that Mark Knopfler heard, although I doubt it. In any case, the word faggot is just left to hang there with no counterpunch. It’s as if both Mark and Sting endorsed its use in a derogatory context.
As for those who complain about censorship, would you be OK with a song that used “cunt’ to describe a woman? How about Mark and Sting singing “that ugly cunt with the long black hair”? Would you be OK with that? Would you? Would you?
Also, keep in mind that MTV played this song over and over in its uncensored format, I believe. So much for MTV being gay-friendly.
Franky
@Danny:
And as of late last year, the option for Trans soldiers to choose to wear the uniform of their current gender or their target gender.
About the song though, I haven’t ever heard the song. My general attitude with songs, though, is that I always have the option to change the station if I song I don’t like comes on. From what I read of other comments it doesn’t seem like they were trying to be particularly offensive with the song but there’s only so much I can really say since I’ve never heard it.
Guilherme Bahia
Fellows, I’m facing the same “war against words” in Brazil, my country. I hate it. But as one who knows his country needs time to “seattle down” as an undeveloped country!…Yeah dudes, I’m talkin’ about mentality! About being able to understand reality in a mature way. It’s about language, meaning, history and liberty, at last!
Think, people can do, think and talk whatever they wish BESIDES…… Sorry, it’s not democracy at all!!!! I expected Canada to be a place more mature and developed concerning mentality, democracy and equality…. If people with to achieve democracy his or her needs to understand that everyone can and will talk about whatever it is! No matter if he or she likes it or not. People need to fight for other ones believes no matter what and who said that. That’s the thing, the goal, the primary thought of human rights…. Finally it’s just a word “fagot” and it doesn’t mean the same now a days…. If people want to point the change, they can’t erase the past because past is history! Things like that seams like George Orwell’s 1984 – The ministry of Truth. Where the power changed the past in order to reinforce the abuses of Government!!!!
Man, really I would understand it in Brazil but not, ever at all in Canada!