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1[[quoteright:304:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/dire-straits_3142.jpg]]
2[[caption-width-right:304:"They don't give a damn 'bout any trumpet-playin' band...\
3It ain't what they call rock and roll..."]]
4->''Now look at them yo-yos, that's the way you do it\
5You play the guitar on the MTV\
6That ain't workin', that's the way you do it\
7Money for nothin' and your chicks for free.''
8-->-- "Money for Nothing"
9
10Dire Straits were a British rock group active from 1978–88 and 1991–95. They had a large rotation of members throughout their history, but the core of the band was lead guitarist, singer, and songwriter Mark Knopfler. They are best known for their hits "Money for Nothing", "Brothers in Arms", "Walk of Life", "Sultans of Swing", "So Far Away", and "Telegraph Road". They released six studio albums, though frontman Mark Knopfler has continued to release solo albums since then.
11----
12!!Discography:
13[[index]]
14* ''Music/DireStraitsAlbum'' (1978)
15* ''Music/{{Communique}}'' (1979)
16* ''Music/MakingMovies'' (1980)
17* ''Music/LoveOverGold'' (1982)
18* ''[[Music/BrothersInArmsAlbum Brothers in Arms]]'' (1985)
19* ''Music/OnEveryStreet'' (1991)
20[[/index]]
21
22!!Principal Members (founding members in bold):
23* Alan Clark: keyboards, piano (1980-8; 1991-5)
24* Guy Fletcher: keyboards, synthesizers, backing vocals (1984-8; 1990-5)
25* Omar Hakim: drums (1984-5)
26* '''John Illsley''': bass, backing vocals (1977-88; 1990-5)
27* '''David Knopfler''': rhythm guitar, backing vocals (1977-80)
28* '''Mark Knopfler''': lead guitar, lead vocals (1977-88; 1990-5)
29* Hal Lindes: rhythm guitar, backing vocals (1980-5)
30* Jack Sonni: rhythm guitar, backing vocals (1985-8)
31* Terry Williams: drums (1982-4, 1985-8)
32* '''David "Pick" Withers''': drums, percussion (1977-82)
33----
34!!Now that ain't workin', that's the way you trope it:
35* AceCustom: The Pensa-Suhr MK-1 and other Pensa or Pensa-Suhr guitars, created for Mark to give him Stratocaster and Les Paul tones in one axe after he got tired of having to switch between these two guitars during concerts.
36* AdamWesting / ParodyAssistance: Mark Knopfler and Guy Fletcher performed the guitar and synths on Music/WeirdAlYankovic's "Money for Nothing" parody "Money for Nothing/Beverly Hillbillies*", which was apparently the one condition on which they would allow it. It still ended up sounding a bit different from the original since they performed their parts more in line with how they had grown accustomed to doing it in concert over the four years since the song was first released.
37* AdaptationalHeroism: The edited-down music video for "Money for Nothing" makes the protagonist nothing worse than a blue-collar worker looking at the music scene. (Where Knopfer has since clarified in interviews just how the singer was meant to come across in the first place.)
38* AlternateMusicVideo: "Walk of Life" has two videos; one featuring a busker in the London Underground and one showing sports bloopers. Both are intercut with (different) live footage of the band playing the song.
39** There are also two videos for "Tunnel of Love". One is part of a thematic video trilogy along with "Romeo and Juliet" and "Skateaway". While each video stands alone, they also blend together from song to song. The other takes place at an amusement park, and follows the lyrics more closely.
40* AgeProgressionSong: "Telegraph Road"
41* {{Anaphora}}:
42** "Telegraph Road"
43--->'''Then came the''' churches\
44'''Then came the''' schools\
45'''Then came the''' lawyers\
46'''Then came the''' rules\
47'''Then came the''' trains\
48And the trucks with their loads
49** "Money for Nothing"
50--->'''We got to''' install microwave ovens\
51Custom kitchen deliveries\
52'''We got to''' move these refrigerators\
53'''We got to''' move these colour [=TVs=]
54** "Walk of Life"
55--->'''He do the''' song about the sweet loving woman\
56'''He do the '''song about the knife\
57'''He do the''' walk\
58'''He do the''' walk of life\
59Yeah '''he do the''' walk of life
60* AnimatedMusicVideo: "Money for Nothing". This video is of special note as the first fully computer-animated music video. The animators later went on to found Creator/MainframeEntertainment[[note]]creators of ''WesternAnimation/ReBoot'' and ''WesternAnimation/BeastWars''[[/note]]. It also won the 1985 Grammy for Best Music Video (beating Music/{{aha}}'s "Take on Me" in an arguable AwardSnub).
61** "Brothers In Arms" features a lot of black & white animation very similar to the aforementioned "Take On Me".
62* TheBandMinusTheFace: Music/TinaTurner's recording of "Private Dancer" (written by Mark, then given to her when he decided it needed a woman's voice) features all the active members of the band circa 1984 except Mark Knopfler, who was prohibited from appearing on it by their record company.
63* BigApplesauce: In "On Every Street" the town the protagonist is singing about is implied to be New York with a reference the fireworks exploding over (the Statue of) Liberty.
64* BittersweetEnding: "In The Gallery": Harry, the {{sculptor|s}}, is recognized as a great artist, but only posthumously.
65* {{Bowdlerize}}: The version of "Money for Nothing" included on the live ''On the Night'' album replaces the slurs in the controversial "faggot" verse with the slightly less offensive "queeny". The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (CBSC), which initially ruled "Like other racially driven words in the English language, 'faggot' is one that, even if entirely or marginally acceptable in earlier days, is no longer so" in regards to the unedited version and banned it from the airwaves. Stations in Halifax and Edmonton played the unedited version for one hour in protest of the ruling, and after further review, left it up to the stations to decide which version to play, and that the words in question were used in a satirical, non-malicious manner.
66* CampGay: "Les Boys" is a sarcastic look at this trope.
67* ConceptAlbum: ''Love Over Gold'', which examines the rise of British domestic industry and its decline under Thatcher.
68* CreatorCameo: Mark Knopfler has played on a number of songs he wrote and were then covered by other artists, including:
69** Music/WeirdAlYankovic's "Money For Nothing/Beverly Hillbillies" mash-up.
70** Music/The Judds' version of "Water Of Love".
71** Music/JeffHealey doing "I Think I Love You Too Much".
72* CrapsackWorld: "Once Upon A Time In The West", which draws parallels between today's world and the lawless "Wild West".
73* DeadArtistsAreBetter: "In The Gallery" is all about the hypocrisy of this trope.
74* DeliberateValuesDissonance: The protagonist in "Money for Nothing" repeatedly makes reference to "that little faggot" in addition to making various other ignorant and bigoted utterances. While casual homophobia was ''exceedingly'' common in the 1980s, the song still attracted a decent amount of controversy, and while that wasn't exactly Knopfler's goal, he definitely did want the audience to see what he saw at that visit to the appliance store that ultimately spawned that song: an ignorant, loudmouthed asshole who embodied all the most repulsive and contemptible traits of rock fans.
75* DownInTheDumps: "So Far From The Clyde," about a British cargo ship that's being torn apart for scrap in a salvage yard in India, [[TitleDrop so far from the Clyde]] Shipyards in Glasgow where it was built.
76* DrivingSong: "Border Reiver" from Knopfler's solo catalog, about driving a lorry of the same model name as the title (produced by the Scottish company Albion), making a living as a young man in 1969.
77* EnglishRose: Gets a ShoutOut in "Portobello Belle", which is about a modern girl walking through the market on Portobello Road:
78--> She thinks she's tough / She ain't no English rose...
79* EpicRocking: Mark Knopfler seemed to have a fondness for this trope.
80** ''Love over Gold'' pretty much only consists of this, with the shortest song being the 5:50 "Industrial Disease" and the longest being the 14:17 "Telegraph Road" (which, incidentally, is the band's longest song in their studio discography). Other longer songs from their other albums include "Tunnel of Love" (8:11), "Money for Nothing" (8:26), "Why Worry" (8:31), "Brothers in Arms" (7:00) and "Planet of the New Orleans" (7:48).
81** The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Pa9x9fZBtY live version]] of "Sultans of Swing" from the live album "Alchemy", which featured an improvised and extended version of the solo.
82** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUVYh7dT5X4 Live versions]] of "On Every Street" generally run around seven minutes as opposed to the five minute studio version.
83* EvilLawyerJoke: In Mark Knopfler's solo song "Cleaning My Gun" (the joke being the name of the firm):
84--> [[MeaningfulName Blarney and Malarkey]], they're a devious firm\
85They'll take you to the cleaners or let you burn
86* FightingForAHomeland: The unnamed narrator of "Brothers in Arms":
87--> These mist-covered mountains are home now for me / But my home is the lowlands and always will be / Some day you'll return to your valleys and your farms / And you'll no longer burn to be brothers in arms...
88* FilmNoir: "Private Investigations" pretty much checks every noir trope into three short verses.
89-->''A bottle of whiskey and a new set of lies\
90Blinds on the window and a pain behind your eyes...''
91* {{Garfunkel}}: Everyone except Mark Knopfler.
92* GreatestHitsAlbum: Three of them to date.
93* HappilyEverAfter: "Storybook Love", the AwardBaitSong from ''Film/ThePrincessBride''.
94-->"Then he swooped her up just like in the books, and on his stallion they rode away."
95* HomesicknessHymn: Mark Knopfler's "Fare Thee Well Northumberland" tells the story of a man who regrets having to leave home and knows he will miss it, but he is "bound to ramble and roam." Unlike many examples of this trope, the narrator outright states "I would not gamble on my coming home."
96* IAmTheBand: Mark Knopfler was lead singer, lead guitarist, sole songwriter, arranger and sometimes producer, and one of only two band members to have been there the entire time they were active.
97* JobSong: "Money for Nothing" is a song about an ignorant blue-collar worker Mark Knopfler encountered in a home appliance store.
98* TheLoinsSleepTonight: Knopfler's old band, Brewer's Droop, was named after a British slang term for alcohol-induced erectile dysfunction. The condition is also mentioned in "Industrial Disease":
99-->"You've got smoker's cough from smoking / Brewer's droop from drinking beer"
100* LoveHurts: "Romeo and Juliet", inspired by Knopfler's own breakup with a fellow musician, Holly Vincent. Less obviously, there's "Tunnel of Love", "Hand in Hand", "Where Do You Think You're Going?" and "On Every Street".
101* LowerClassLout: The protagonist of "Money for Nothing", 'the crowd of young boys' in "Sultans of Swing" and every character except for the doctor in "Industrial Disease".
102* LyricalDissonance:
103** In "Money for Nothing", the word "faggot" pops up a couple of times, and the narrator makes numerous other homophobic, piggish, racist, and just plain ignorant statements. Knopfler has repeatedly explained that the song was inspired by an unambitious dumbass he met in an electronics store who struck him as the epitome of everything that was wrong and reactionary about rock fans, so the song is written from his perspective - many of the lines in fact were verbatim quotes from things Knopfler heard him say ("that ain't workin'", "the little faggot with the earring and make-up", "we got to install microwave ovens...", and so on).
104** The band's big hit, "Sultans Of Swing" is a rock and roll song rather than swing, although justified in that the "Sultans Of Swing" themselves are a swing/blues band, shown in the following stanza:
105---> And a crowd of young boys, well they're fooling around in the corner\
106Drunk and dressed in their best brown-baggies and their platform soles\
107They don't give a damn about any trumpet playing band\
108It ain't what they call rock and roll\
109And the Sultans\
110Yeah, the Sultans play Creole\
111Creole blues
112** "Industrial Disease". A happy-sounding song about, among other things, the decline of the British manufacturing industry.
113** "A Ticket to Heaven" is an interesting example - on the surface, the melody matches the lyrics perfectly, but when you look at the lyrics closely, it's actually an ironic satire of teleevangelists. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1k8B-qw040 Many people in Youtubeland don't look close enough...]]
114** "Heavy Fuel" is a catchy, upbeat number about an alcoholic on the verge of self-destruction:
115--->I don't care if my liver is hanging by a thread\
116Don't care if my doctor says I ought to be dead\
117When my ugly big car won't climb this hill\
118I'll write a suicide note on a hundred dollar bill
119* ManicPixieDreamGirl: "Skateaway", though unlike many examples of the trope it just seems to be a girl the narrator has seen who has no apparent interest in him.
120* MemoryTrigger: The song "Lady Writer": Seeing the titular person on the TV reminds the singer about someone:
121--> Lady writer on the TV
122--> Talking about the Virgin Mary
123--> Reminded me of you
124--> Expectation left to come up to, yeah
125--> Lady writer on the TV
126--> Yeah, she had another quality
127--> The way you used to look
128--> And I know you never read a book
129--> Just the way that her hair fell down around her face
130--> And I remember my fall from grace
131* MinimalisticCoverArt: ''Making Movies''
132* MoneySong: "Money for Nothing"
133* NapoleonDelusion: "Industrial Disease" includes the line "Two men say they're Jesus. [[FalseDilemma One of them must be wrong]]..."
134* NewSoundAlbum: While they never entirely moved away from their roots rock roots ''Love Over Gold'' definitely marked a shift to a more technically complex sound with more liberal use of EpicRocking. This is particularly apparent on ''Love Over Gold'' itself, which opens up with the '''14-minute''' ProgressiveRock suite "Telegraph Road".
135* NobodyLovesTheBassist: Other than Mark Knopfler himself, John Illsley was the only member of the original 1978 line-up who was still around in 1995. You'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who remembers his name, even among fans.
136* TheOneThatGotAway: "Tunnel of Love"--remembering a little flingy encounter with a female stranger at an amusement park which he didn't pursue further, but he was wistful about it later.
137* OutOfGenreExperience: ''Love over Gold'', a ProgressiveRock album from a band otherwise known for roots rock.
138* PerformanceVideo: Done with some of their earlier songs like "Sultans Of Swing" and "Lady Writer".
139* PoliticallyIncorrectHero: The narrator of "Money for Nothing" is deliberately designed to be a bigot who doesn't understand what he's talking about. Throughout the song, he decries MTV rock artists as homophobic slurs simply because they earn fame and fortune through a seemingly simplistic method while he's stuck working a dead-end job.
140* PrivateEyeMonologue: "Private Investigations".
141* ProtestSong: "Iron Hand" is a criticism of the Thatcher government's actions during a miners' strike. "Industrial Disease", mentioned above, is about Britain's economic malaise in the early 1980s.
142* PuttingOnTheReich: "Les Boys got leather straps / Les Boys got SS caps / but they got no gun now."
143* TheRoadie: The video for "Heavy Fuel" centers on one of their roadies, played by Creator/RandyQuaid.
144* RockstarSong: Pretty much all of their singles touch on some facet of this.
145** Subverted by their debut single "Sultans of Swing", a song about a band that's never going to make it big and doesn't really mind.
146** "Money for Nothing" is a variation of the type, a song about what a blue-collar schmo imagines being a rock star is like.
147* SelfTitledAlbum: The band's debut album.
148* ShoutOut
149** "Calling Elvis" contains a bunch of references to Music/ElvisPresley (duh)...
150** ...And "Walk of Life" to Gene Vincent and Music/RayCharles.
151** "Telegraph Road" is a WholePlotReference to Creator/KnutHamsun's ''Growth of the Soil''.
152** "Romeo and Juliet" aside from the obvious one in the title, also references "My Boyfriend's Back" by the Angels and "There's a Place For Us" from ''Theatre/WestSideStory''.
153** In RealLife, the dinosaur ''Masiakasaurus knopfleri'' is named after Mark Knopfler
154* SomethingBlues: "Millionaire Blues", the B-side to the ''On Every Street'' single.
155** "Hill Farmer's Blues" from Knopfler's solo catalog
156* SpecialGuest: Music/{{Sting}} on "Money for Nothing", singing the falsetto "I want my MTV!" in the melody of his own "[[Music/ThePolice Don't Stand So Close to Me]]". (He got a songwriting credit because of this.)
157* StealthPun: A great one in "Romeo and Juliet"
158-->Now you just say "Oh, Romeo. Yeah, I used to have a scene with him."
159* TakeThat:
160** Knopfler's solo song "Boom Like That" is a vicious slagging of the [=McDonald=]'s corporation... using Ray Kroc's own words.
161** "In The Gallery" is a TakeThat against modern art; Harry the sculptor, who makes angels and coal miners, goes unrecognized, while an artist who puts up a blank canvas gets into the trendy galleries in London.
162** "Terminal of Tribute To" is a thorough attack on The Straits, who kept playing old Dire Straits songs long after the band dissolved and don't have any original members left.
163** "Don't Crash the Ambulance" is something a little more gentle aimed at both George Bushes and Sr.'s "passing on" of his role to Jr.
164** Lastly, "Money for Nothing" is a pretty open middle-finger to the type of rock fan that Knopfler absolutely despised: an ignorant, loutish asshole who filters everything that he sees through his own benighted perspective.
165* ThisIsASong: "Wild West End" is about Knopfler going shopping for a pickup for the guitar he's playing on the song itself.
166* TrialPeriodDating: In "Tunnel of Love", the narrator and the girl he meets at the carnival end up falling in love, but mutually agree to only spend that day together. After the girl gives him her locket and kisses him, she [[TheOneThatGotAway disappears from his life]], but the narrator ends up having second thoughts and tries to look for her around the carnival, to no avail.
167* WarIsHell: "Brothers In Arms".
168** "Done with Bonaparte" from 'Golden Heart' as well.

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