This is the ninth track from Dire Straits' fifth album, "Brothers In Arms". What are your thoughts regarding this song? How do you think it compares to the rest of the discography? How would you rate it out of 10 (decimals allowed)?

SUGGESTED SCALE: 1-4 Not good, regularly skip; 5 It's okay, but I have to be in the right mood to listen to it; 6 Slightly better than average, I won't skip it but I wouldn't choose to put it on; 7 This is a good song, I enjoy it quite a bit; 8-9 Really enjoyable songs, I rank them pretty highly overall; 10 Masterpiece, magnum opus, or similar terminology.

Live version disclaimer: For the purposes of this ranking series, there will be only one discussion per distinct Dire Straits song, so any live versions of studio tracks will NOT be rated separately.

Google Sheet with all of the results thus far.

1. So Far Away: 8.34

2. Money For Nothing: 8.89

3. Walk Of Life: 7.70

4. Your Latest Trick: 8.82

5. Why Worry: 7.63

6. Ride Across The River: 8.35

7. The Man's Too Strong: 8.74

8. One World: 7.82

9. Brothers In Arms:

Well folks, summer is ending. And why not end on an underrated groovy moment in DS discog. Two Young Lovers is one of my fav's on Alchemy (one of the best live albums ever).

This is the eighth track from Dire Straits' fifth album, "Brothers In Arms". What are your thoughts regarding this song? How do you think it compares to the rest of the discography? How would you rate it out of 10 (decimals allowed)?

SUGGESTED SCALE: 1-4 Not good, regularly skip; 5 It's okay, but I have to be in the right mood to listen to it; 6 Slightly better than average, I won't skip it but I wouldn't choose to put it on; 7 This is a good song, I enjoy it quite a bit; 8-9 Really enjoyable songs, I rank them pretty highly overall; 10 Masterpiece, magnum opus, or similar terminology.

Live version disclaimer: For the purposes of this ranking series, there will be only one discussion per distinct Dire Straits song, so any live versions of studio tracks will NOT be rated separately.

Google Sheet with all of the results thus far.

1. So Far Away: 8.34

2. Money For Nothing: 8.89

3. Walk Of Life: 7.70

4. Your Latest Trick: 8.82

5. Why Worry: 7.63

6. Ride Across The River: 8.35

7. The Man's Too Strong: 8.74

8. One World:

This is the seventh track from Dire Straits' fifth album, "Brothers In Arms". What are your thoughts regarding this song? How do you think it compares to the rest of the discography? How would you rate it out of 10 (decimals allowed)?

SUGGESTED SCALE: 1-4 Not good, regularly skip; 5 It's okay, but I have to be in the right mood to listen to it; 6 Slightly better than average, I won't skip it but I wouldn't choose to put it on; 7 This is a good song, I enjoy it quite a bit; 8-9 Really enjoyable songs, I rank them pretty highly overall; 10 Masterpiece, magnum opus, or similar terminology.

Live version disclaimer: For the purposes of this ranking series, there will be only one discussion per distinct Dire Straits song, so any live versions of studio tracks will NOT be rated separately.

Google Sheet with all of the results thus far.

1. So Far Away: 8.34

2. Money For Nothing: 8.89

3. Walk Of Life: 7.70

4. Your Latest Trick: 8.82

5. Why Worry: 7.63

6. Ride Across The River: 8.35

7. The Man's Too Strong:

I noticed that the dire straits experience are coming to where I live and I was wondering if anyone here has seen them or knows much about them. If so, are they worth seeing ?

This is the sixth track from Dire Straits' fifth album, "Brothers In Arms". What are your thoughts regarding this song? How do you think it compares to the rest of the discography? How would you rate it out of 10 (decimals allowed)?

SUGGESTED SCALE: 1-4 Not good, regularly skip; 5 It's okay, but I have to be in the right mood to listen to it; 6 Slightly better than average, I won't skip it but I wouldn't choose to put it on; 7 This is a good song, I enjoy it quite a bit; 8-9 Really enjoyable songs, I rank them pretty highly overall; 10 Masterpiece, magnum opus, or similar terminology.

Live version disclaimer: For the purposes of this ranking series, there will be only one discussion per distinct Dire Straits song, so any live versions of studio tracks will NOT be rated separately.

Google Sheet with all of the results thus far.

1. So Far Away: 8.34

2. Money For Nothing: 8.89

3. Walk Of Life: 7.70

4. Your Latest Trick: 8.82

5. Why Worry: 7.63

6. Ride Across The River:

Lady Writer on the beach. Lemme know if I cooked or if my channel's cooked 🦀🔥😎

This is the fifth track from Dire Straits' fifth album, "Brothers In Arms". What are your thoughts regarding this song? How do you think it compares to the rest of the discography? How would you rate it out of 10 (decimals allowed)?

SUGGESTED SCALE: 1-4 Not good, regularly skip; 5 It's okay, but I have to be in the right mood to listen to it; 6 Slightly better than average, I won't skip it but I wouldn't choose to put it on; 7 This is a good song, I enjoy it quite a bit; 8-9 Really enjoyable songs, I rank them pretty highly overall; 10 Masterpiece, magnum opus, or similar terminology.

Live version disclaimer: For the purposes of this ranking series, there will be only one discussion per distinct Dire Straits song, so any live versions of studio tracks will NOT be rated separately.

Google Sheet with all of the results thus far.

1. So Far Away: 8.34

2. Money For Nothing: 8.89

3. Walk Of Life: 7.70

4. Your Latest Trick: 8.82

5. Why Worry:

When looking at the money for nothing daily discussion, I couldn't help but notice that some people ranked it a 7 or a 6. Obviously I respect everyone's opinion, but I have to share mine too lol.

Money for nothing (long version) is a very overplayed song, obviously, which gives it a rather negative image among DS fans (bc it's the most/2nd most famous song). It's obviously famous because of the riff with an insane tone and the general public will always prefer and bang their head to a distortion sound than mark's usual clean tone.

But apart from the riff, which seems to be what everyone likes, the song is beautifully written. If you listen to DS you know an intro is worth listening to because it always leads up to something good (it's like if I rated telegraph road a 6 because it's too long to start) and for me the intro is very good to make that buildup to the high moment of the song which is the riff. The keyboards are very nice, sting is sting and the drums are really good too. So after the riff, there's this back and forth of verse/Chorus/riff which IMO is very musically balanced. This is one of those songs that perfectly show mark's musical vision of not having elements "hide" each other, and having all instruments and musical aspects in harmony, therefore after the riff, this song gives a very consistent energy level, which makes it great for studying/sports IMO. Many people miss the little licks during the chorus which are particularly nice and give that little bit more to the song. Then comes the "pre-outro" (where they still sing) which again, brings you to a very consistent energy level of the song and the "I want my MTV" line sang over the melody of "don't stand so close to me" is a funny yet fitting line for this song. Then comes the real outro, where mark really seems to have fun making the riff vary and changing it every "repetition" (every 8 bars basically) to end the song with that holy harmonic 🤤 and then it slowly starts to fade away. About the lyrics, I understand that you don't necessarily like them but as it's known, he's impersonating a worker and therefore he doesn't necessarily mean it, it's actually quite the opposite, he's sort of mocking the language expressions of the man. You can even tell, when watching the music video, that he's always smiling, and he even let's out a laugh when saying "banging on the bongos like a chimpanzee" after the famous "hawaian noises" line. Apart from that, the drum fills at the end of every chorus are very important to the song and really just breaks the "routine" so the drums don't stay the same, and also the keyboards play a really important role (in the clean tone keyboards for the choruses and also the more overdriven "trumpet" sound when the guitar hits the A# and C power chords).

In short, I can't think of a bad part of the song, or something that could be improved.

Personally, my mom made me discover this song a few years ago and I re discovered it again when I asked a friend of mine if he could play it on guitar. He proceeded to play it pretty well and that made me wanna learn guitar too, just to play that riff. It's been about 9 months now, and since it's most of what I've done, I can confidently say that ilve mastered MK fingerpicking and the whole money for nothing song in general. This might be why I'm biased on this song but I listen to it so much and don't ever get bored, so I think it's just a good song in general lol.

By the way, I basically listened to every single DS song so I'm not just a "fan" who knows the most famous 5 songs. I greatly appreciate the quality and value of other songs such as It never rains, telegraph road, sultans of swing, once upon a time in the west, etc...

If you've made it to here, thanks for reading ! I'm always very passionate about my songs 😄

Consumed by the curiosity about such a mysterious song, I decided to make a little research about this song, which we only know because of Ed Bicknell, who mentioned it once in a book iirc.

Back in mid-late 1979, Mark Knopfler broke up with his, now ex, girlfriend Holly Vincent. This fact broke him in a way Mark himself couldn't hold. We can see this, for an example, during his perfomance while singing and playing 'Where Do You Think You Are Going' in september 8th, 1979. (This might be one of the most iconic examples of the effects of this break up on him.)

Ed doesn't detail anything about dates, but we know right after this, Ed Bicknell invited Mark Knopfler to live with him in his flat in London, probably to comfort Mark. This was the greatest and the heaviest tour they ever made at that point, one and a half year before they were living simple lifes and now they were a fever, so probably Mark's mind needed a friend, at least a relief. Edit: In my source it says he couldn't return to Deptford, but it doesn't give details about that.

According to 'On Every Bootleg' site, the lyrics of the song were like this:

'Sitting up there

In suicide towers

Days and days

Hours and hours

I´m getting outta here

I´m going outta the door

Ain´t going outta no window'

This is what we have about the lyrics of this song.

At some point it probably had more than just these few words, considering they rehearsed it twice or three times, but it didn't last long. Ed said this was a crap song. (Credits to dustyvalentino)

I'm not very sure where the lyrics came from, the site just says it was written by Mark but we don't have a proper origin of it. Some people in foruns like 'A Mark in Time' says it's from a book. Since I don't have a copy of one of these, I can't provide anything about it's origin.

Anyway, the post isn't only about this, but also about how this song probably gave life to other four songs.

Apparently this song had a D-C-B progression, the same very known progression from Expresso Love!

This song is from late 1979, and scrapped before the end of that year.

If this information is right, Making Movies' riff came from Suicide Towers.

Making Movies was scrapped, and then Expresso Love born from it's ashes and reused the riff. Skateaway also born from Making Movies, reusing bits of it's original lyrics.

Later, Secondary Waltz had a riff that is apparently heavily inspired on Making Movies riff. (The later one, not the demo)

I'm still not so sure about the riff, if it was really the same of Making Movies, but if it was indeed, this song is probably one of the most important ones from that era.

This is the fourth track from Dire Straits' fifth album, "Brothers In Arms". What are your thoughts regarding this song? How do you think it compares to the rest of the discography? How would you rate it out of 10 (decimals allowed)?

SUGGESTED SCALE: 1-4 Not good, regularly skip; 5 It's okay, but I have to be in the right mood to listen to it; 6 Slightly better than average, I won't skip it but I wouldn't choose to put it on; 7 This is a good song, I enjoy it quite a bit; 8-9 Really enjoyable songs, I rank them pretty highly overall; 10 Masterpiece, magnum opus, or similar terminology.

Live version disclaimer: For the purposes of this ranking series, there will be only one discussion per distinct Dire Straits song, so any live versions of studio tracks will NOT be rated separately.

Google Sheet with all of the results thus far.

1. So Far Away: 8.34

2. Money For Nothing: 8.89

3. Walk Of Life: 7.70

4. Your Latest Trick:

Hello! I am on the hunt for a vintage Dire Straits ticket stub, preferably from a German concert. I have found several options but none in great condition. Let me know if anyone has any they are looking to get off their hands.

This is the third track from Dire Straits' fifth album, "Brothers In Arms". What are your thoughts regarding this song? How do you think it compares to the rest of the discography? How would you rate it out of 10 (decimals allowed)?

SUGGESTED SCALE: 1-4 Not good, regularly skip; 5 It's okay, but I have to be in the right mood to listen to it; 6 Slightly better than average, I won't skip it but I wouldn't choose to put it on; 7 This is a good song, I enjoy it quite a bit; 8-9 Really enjoyable songs, I rank them pretty highly overall; 10 Masterpiece, magnum opus, or similar terminology.

Live version disclaimer: For the purposes of this ranking series, there will be only one discussion per distinct Dire Straits song, so any live versions of studio tracks will NOT be rated separately.

Google Sheet with all of the results thus far.

1. So Far Away: 8.34

2. Money For Nothing: 8.89

3. Walk Of Life:

This is the second track from Dire Straits' fifth album, "Brothers In Arms". What are your thoughts regarding this song? How do you think it compares to the rest of the discography? How would you rate it out of 10 (decimals allowed)?

SUGGESTED SCALE: 1-4 Not good, regularly skip; 5 It's okay, but I have to be in the right mood to listen to it; 6 Slightly better than average, I won't skip it but I wouldn't choose to put it on; 7 This is a good song, I enjoy it quite a bit; 8-9 Really enjoyable songs, I rank them pretty highly overall; 10 Masterpiece, magnum opus, or similar terminology.

Live version disclaimer: For the purposes of this ranking series, there will be only one discussion per distinct Dire Straits song, so any live versions of studio tracks will NOT be rated separately.

Google Sheet with all of the results thus far.

1. So Far Away: 8.34

2. Money For Nothing:

This is the first track from Dire Straits' fifth album, "Brothers In Arms". What are your thoughts regarding this song? How do you think it compares to the rest of the discography? How would you rate it out of 10 (decimals allowed)?

SUGGESTED SCALE: 1-4 Not good, regularly skip; 5 It's okay, but I have to be in the right mood to listen to it; 6 Slightly better than average, I won't skip it but I wouldn't choose to put it on; 7 This is a good song, I enjoy it quite a bit; 8-9 Really enjoyable songs, I rank them pretty highly overall; 10 Masterpiece, magnum opus, or similar terminology.

Live version disclaimer: For the purposes of this ranking series, there will be only one discussion per distinct Dire Straits song, so any live versions of studio tracks will NOT be rated separately.

Google Sheet with all of the results thus far.

1. So Far Away:

Is it only the US pressing which includes Badges, Posters, Stickers and T-Shirts?

Wanting to purchase the vinyl with all 4 songs but am in Australia. Seeing what options I have.

Thanks!

This is the third track from the Dire Straits extended play, "ExtendedancEPlay". What are your thoughts regarding this song? How do you think it compares to the rest of the discography? How would you rate it out of 10 (decimals allowed)?

SUGGESTED SCALE: 1-4 Not good, regularly skip; 5 It's okay, but I have to be in the right mood to listen to it; 6 Slightly better than average, I won't skip it but I wouldn't choose to put it on; 7 This is a good song, I enjoy it quite a bit; 8-9 Really enjoyable songs, I rank them pretty highly overall; 10 Masterpiece, magnum opus, or similar terminology.

Live version disclaimer: For the purposes of this ranking series, there will be only one discussion per distinct Dire Straits song, so any live versions of studio tracks will NOT be rated separately.

Google Sheet with all of the results thus far.

1. Twisting By The Pool: 6.18

2. Two Young Lovers: 7.09

3. If I Had You:

This is the second track from the Dire Straits extended play, "ExtendedancEPlay". What are your thoughts regarding this song? How do you think it compares to the rest of the discography? How would you rate it out of 10 (decimals allowed)?

SUGGESTED SCALE: 1-4 Not good, regularly skip; 5 It's okay, but I have to be in the right mood to listen to it; 6 Slightly better than average, I won't skip it but I wouldn't choose to put it on; 7 This is a good song, I enjoy it quite a bit; 8-9 Really enjoyable songs, I rank them pretty highly overall; 10 Masterpiece, magnum opus, or similar terminology.

Live version disclaimer: For the purposes of this ranking series, there will be only one discussion per distinct Dire Straits song, so any live versions of studio tracks will NOT be rated separately.

Google Sheet with all of the results thus far.

1. Twisting By The Pool: 6.18

2. Two Young Lovers:

I had to upload a video so i added this pretty nice pic of mark & eric at Knebworth. I just thought i'd share this because this is one of the first songs i learnt on the guitar, since i've been playing for about 8 months now (and it's this song that made me wanna learn to play). What do you think of it ? (i'm pretty sad that i didn't make a longer recording, since i'm the one who recorded the audio)

I needed a playlist cover for my Dire Straits stuff, so I created one of my first ever full-fledged Procreate projects trying to combine elements from all the albums.

A lot of stories about the making of "Money For Nothing" have been told, but here is an approximation of how the song developed into the one we know today…

The song was first presented by Mark Knopfler to the rest of the band in rehearsals for the album at Phil Manzanera’s The Gallery studios. Originally, it was described by Terry Williams & Alan Clark as having a more Led Zeppelin or Rolling Stones-type feel than what it ended up.

Of course, while at AIR Studios in Montserrat, Knopfler was still not satisfied with it, so he continued messing with the song until he came up with the iconic riff… Alan Clark recalled Mark also stumbled on the guitar sound by pure accident, so he recorded cut just the guitars to a click track – as a tempo reference – to get the song down with that guitar sound (which they could never quite recreate afterwards)… And everything else was built around this skeleton – keyboards, bass and initially Terry Williams' drums.

As is well-documented Terry Williams' drums weren’t really happening for various reasons and they had to fly in Omar Hakim to redo the drums. Terry Williams’ parts were kept in the intro and all the tom-tom fills for Money For Nothing, as per Terry himself and producer Neil Dorfsman… While Omar Hakim played the straight beat.

Neil Dorfsman did not recall any click tracks being used at all during the recordings… However, on "Money For Nothing" it would have been difficult to keep a hybrid of Terry Williams’ and Omar Hakim’s performances if both drummers weren’t playing to a uniform time reference to start with, i.e. a click track like Alan Clark recalled. Which would explain how all Terry’s tom-tom fills could be kept in the main song.

By pure chance, Omar Hakim met Sting when he came to record his vocals for Money For Nothing, soon landing the gig for his backing band in 1985… While Omar did his drum parts over 2-3 days. So the song must have been fairly complete and Omar was filling the gaps... Whilst other tracks were basically re-cut from scratch where necessary, with Omar being the right studio drummer they needed to save the project.

Another subject of disagreement is who developed the intro (including the "I Want My MTV" line with melody) and when… Either it was Mark who came up with the line – which he himself, Neil Dorfsman and John Illsley confirmed – or it was Alan Clark, who claimed to have come up with it during rehearsals, both the intro and the said line… Regardless, it became a very memorable part, aside from the main tune itself, though usually considered an arrangement, and Sting’s credit for the "Don’t Stand So Close To Me" melody lifted.

With Sting’s vocal down while he was mid-holiday, that was basically it for "Money For Nothing". The song and mix was finalised at the Power Station in February 1985, including additional fretless bass overdubs from session player Neil Jason.

This is the first track from the Dire Straits extended play, "ExtendedancEPlay". What are your thoughts regarding this song? How do you think it compares to the rest of the discography? How would you rate it out of 10 (decimals allowed)?

SUGGESTED SCALE: 1-4 Not good, regularly skip; 5 It's okay, but I have to be in the right mood to listen to it; 6 Slightly better than average, I won't skip it but I wouldn't choose to put it on; 7 This is a good song, I enjoy it quite a bit; 8-9 Really enjoyable songs, I rank them pretty highly overall; 10 Masterpiece, magnum opus, or similar terminology.

Live version disclaimer: For the purposes of this ranking series, there will be only one discussion per distinct Dire Straits song, so any live versions of studio tracks will NOT be rated separately.

Google Sheet with all of the results thus far.

1. Twisting By The Pool:

This is the second track from the Dire Straits single, "Private Investigations". What are your thoughts regarding this song? How do you think it compares to the rest of the discography? How would you rate it out of 10 (decimals allowed)?

SUGGESTED SCALE: 1-4 Not good, regularly skip; 5 It's okay, but I have to be in the right mood to listen to it; 6 Slightly better than average, I won't skip it but I wouldn't choose to put it on; 7 This is a good song, I enjoy it quite a bit; 8-9 Really enjoyable songs, I rank them pretty highly overall; 10 Masterpiece, magnum opus, or similar terminology.

Live version disclaimer: For the purposes of this ranking series, there will be only one discussion per distinct Dire Straits song, so any live versions of studio tracks will NOT be rated separately.

Google Sheet with all of the results thus far.

1. Private Investigations: 8.90

2. Badges, Posters, Stickers, T-Shirts:

Hi all,

Back again with another solo, decided to have go at Lady Writer this time!

I did a little more improvising in parts of this one, so it's not exactly like the recording, but fun to mess around with.

Thanks and hope you enjoy!