But my home is the lowlands, and always will be
You play the guitar on the MTV
That ain't workin' that's the way you do it
Money for nothin' and your chicks for free
Now that ain't workin' that's the way you do it
Lemme tell ya them guys ain't dumb
Maybe get a blister on your little finger
Maybe get a blister on your thumb
Brothers in Arms is the fifth studio album recorded by British rock band Dire Straits. It was released through Vertigo Records in the UK and Warner (Bros.) Records in the US on 13 May 1985.
It became a massive million-seller thanks to the title track, "Walk of Life", "Your Latest Trick" and the song "Money for Nothing", which was noted for its criticism of MTV. It's one of the biggest-selling albums of all time and was one of the first albums by a major act to be released on CD concurrently with the LP release (barring indie titles, most CD releases early in the format's life were of albums that had already been out for at least a couple of years).
In fact, its CD release is notable as the album was specifically designed to take advantage of the format's strengths compared to the then-well-established gramophone record: not only was every song recorded digitally (though mixing was still done with analog equipment), but the fact that the majority of the tracks were Epic Rocking meant that it was impossible to fit the full album onto a single record. Indeed, up until 2006, all vinyl releases of Brothers in Arms cut a few minutes off of most of the songs (this only changed when Vertigo Records realized they could just release the uncut version as a double LP, but at the time of its original release, double albums were considered commercially unviable in the wake of the relative underperformance of Fleetwood Mac's Tusk compared to Rumours).
This gimmick paid off quite well for Dire Straits, with the album becoming the first to sell more copies on CD than on vinyl, making it one of two major killer apps for the CD format (the other being a reissue of Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon). It helps that the album came out just as CD players were dropping dramatically in price since their introduction three years earlier, becoming affordable for the average rock fan. Beyond that, the album was a gargantuan commercial success overall, topping the charts in the UK, the US, Australia, Austria, Canada, the Netherlands, Germany, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland, and going on to become the best-selling album of 1985 in the UK and Australia. The album would also be certified diamond in Canada & France and platinum in a hell of a lot of other places a hell of a lot of times: twenty-four-fold in New Zealand, seventeen-fold in Australia, fourteen-fold in the UK, nine-fold in the US, six-fold in Switzerland, five-fold in Denmark, four-fold in Austria, three-fold in Spain, two-fold in Finland, and one-fold in Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, and Switzerland. It also went gold in Argentina, Poland, and Sweden.
Regarding the musical content itself, the album is both a New Sound Album and a Revisiting the Roots approach, returning to the band's original rock sound following the Progressive Rock-oriented Love Over Gold, while simultaneously continuing that album's musical experimentation and incorporation of synthesizers for atmospheric effect (albeit oriented in a far more commercially accessible direction). As with Talking Heads' Little Creatures released the same year, the album would herald a trend toward "rootsy" musical textures in popular music during the second half of the 1980s, embodied by the resonator guitar on the cover. Combined with the continued presence of Epic Rocking, the end result is a sonic middle ground between the nostalgic minimalism of the band's first three albums and the musical innovation of Love Over Gold.
As noted above, it was released on a 33-rpm double vinyl album in 2006, permitting all full versions of the album's songs on its vinyl release for the first time. In 2015, the album was remastered for its 30th anniversary, being released on CD and a full-speed (45-rpm) double vinyl album. A new remaster made specifically for yet another double vinyl release was made in 2021. As a result of all the re-releases, Brothers in Arms has accumulated nearly seven full years on the Official Charts Company's UK album chart.note
This album was the very first subject of the TV documentary series Classic Albums, being the starting album on their initial 1989 TV special, and is also the Trope Namer for Money for Nothing.
Tracklist:
- "So Far Away" (5:12)*
- "Money for Nothing" (8:26)*
- "Walk of Life" (4:12)
- "Your Latest Trick" (6:33)*
- "Why Worry" (8:31)*
- "Ride Across the River" (6:58)
- "The Man's Too Strong" (4:40)
- "One World" (3:40)
- "Brothers in Arms" (6:59)
Principal Members:
- Alan Clark - keyboard
- Guy Fletcher - synthesizer, vocals
- John Illsley - bass, vocals
- Mark Knopfler - lead vocals, guitar
- Omar Hakim - drums
- Terry Williams - drums
"Here come Johnny, gonna tell ya the story, hand me down my walking tropes":
- Alliterative Title: "Why Worry"
- Amusing Injuries: One of the workers in the "Money For Nothing" video is subject to Harmless Freezing and Losing Your Head, but appears unharmed by the video's end.
- Anaphora:
- "Money for Nothing"We got to install microwave ovens
Custom kitchen deliveries
We got to move these refrigerators
We got to move these colour TVs - "Walk of Life"He do the song about the sweet loving woman
He do the song about the knife
He do the walk
He do the walk of life
Yeah he do the walk of life
- "Money for Nothing"
- Animated Music Video:
- "Money for Nothing," notably for being the very first music video to feature fully computer-animated characters (created by the team that would eventually become Mainframe Entertainment and create ReBoot and Beast Wars) and also featuring bits of rotoscoping over footage of the band. It ended up nabbing the 1985 Grammy for Best Music Video from another classic animated video, a-ha's "Take on Me."
- "Brother In Arms" includes various kinds of animation, including stop-motion, rotoscoping and normal hand-drawn animation.
- Biting-the-Hand Humor: "Money for Nothing" criticised MTV, while at the same time having a music video that got a lot of airplay on the channel. In fact, Mark Knopfler doesn't like music videos and only agreed to have one done for the song because MTV themselves insisted.
- Capitalism Is Bad: "Money for Nothing", a criticism of the music industry, especially regarding MTV.
- Deliberate Values Dissonance: Per word of Mark Knopfler, "Money for Nothing" is sung from the perspective of a conservative retail store clerk commenting on the music videos he sees on MTV, which he doesn't consider "real" work (hence the refrain, "money for nothing and the chicks for free"). He also mocks a singer's effeminate getup via homophobic slurs, sleazily remarks on a woman performer, and makes racist jokes at the expense of a bongo player. Knopfler emphasized that you're meant to see the narrator of the song as a scumbag and that it's a reflection of his own negative opinions on fans of rock music.
- End of an Age: The album's release marked the end of the era of the phonograph (which had already been losing ground to the cassette) as the dominant form of music reproduction and the rise of the CD, with its longer tracks on CD and cassette as well as the use of digital recording. Major labels would give vinyl shorter shrift through the decade until they started to phase out LP releases altogether around the end of the '80s. The album's later double-LP release would herald the end of the CD era and the start of the Vinyl Revival in turn, with
the return of the LP as the premier physical music format. - Epic Rocking: Invoked by the band as a way to promote the CD format. The broad majority of the tracksnote all exceed six minutes; in fact, the abundance of atypically long tracks on Brothers in Arms meant that the only way to release the album in its entirety on the vinyl record format was as a double LP.
- Fighting for a Homeland: The unnamed narrator of "Brothers in Arms":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...
- I Coulda Been a Contender!: The narrator of "Money for Nothing" laments that he should have learned to play guitar or drums, the worst physical discomfort being a blister on his finger or thumb and an easy life of not doing real work.
- Long-Distance Relationship: The narrator of "So Far Away" is a guy in one of these missing his girl; the song provides the page quote.
- Lower-Class Lout: The protagonist of "Money for Nothing".I shoulda learned to play the guitar
I should learned to play them drums
Look at that mama, she got it stickin' in the camera
Man, we could have some fun
And he's up there, what's that? Hawaiian noises?
He's bangin' on the bongos like a chimpanzee - Lyrical Dissonance: In "Money for Nothing", the word "faggot" pops up a couple of times, and the narrator makes numerous other racist, homophobic, misogynistic, and just plain ignorant statements. Knopfler has repeatedly explained that the song was inspired by an unambitious, bigoted 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 taken verbatim 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).
- Money Song:Money for nothing and your chicks for free
- Real Life Writes the Plot: "Money for Nothing" was inspired by the over-night sensation that was MTV. At the time of recording the channel was only four years old, but had already become an international mainstream success dictating the norms for the music industry for years to come.
- Sexophone: "Your Latest Trick".
- Shout-Out:
- "Money for Nothing" references the "I Want My MTV" advertising slogan at the start and end of the song.
- Crossing with Song of Song Titles: The street musician in "Walk of Life" plays oldies, including "I Got a Woman", "What'd I Say", 'Be-Bop-a-Lula', "Mack the Knife", "My Sweet Lovin' Woman".
- Silly Love Songs: "So Far Away", which is basically the narrator missing his girl.
- Special Guest: Sting on "Money for Nothing", singing the falsetto "I want my MTV!" in the melody of his own "Don't Stand So Close to Me". (He got a songwriting credit because of this.)
- Take That!: "Money for Nothing" was a less-than-subtle critique of MTV.Now look at them yo-yos, that's the way you do itYou play the guitar on the MTVThat ain't workin', that's the way you do itMoney for nothing and your chicks for free
- Time Marches On: The "Money for Nothing" music video had some of the earliest CGI animation, which looks extremely primitive today, but it was considered ground-breaking in its original release.
- Title Track: "Brothers in Arms".Someday you'll return to your valleys and your farmsAnd you'll no longer burn to be brothers in arms
- Trope Codifier: This was the first album to be specifically recorded and produced for the CD market - the CD version contained longer versions of several songs than the vinyl version and was the first album to sell more copies on CD than vinyl.
- War Is Hell: At least two songs. "Brothers in Arms" is about the tribulations of ordinary soldiers in combat. "The Man's Too Strong" is an extended My God, What Have I Done? from a war criminal.
- "Ride Across the River" sorta-kinda fits too:I'm a soldier of fortune, I'm a dog of warAnd we don't give a damn who the killing is forIt's the same old story with a different nameDeath or glory, it's the killing game
- "Ride Across the River" sorta-kinda fits too:
