Rev. Jesus “H" Christ, KSC: I thought everyone loved it because of the Weird Al cover

"do you feel the band Dire Straits is overrated, underrated or properly rated" would be a good Voight Kampff Test question.

Was Sting's cameo of I Want My MTV on Money For Nothing the reason everyone loved the song? Or was it the video? Or neither?

I thought everyone loved it because of the Weird Al cover

Both the song and the Weird Al cover are bangers

It drives me nuts when Weird Al gets pushed into the stunt music category. Brilliant writer, musician, and performer.

His original compositions are almost always the best songs on each album too

The whole thing where Dare To Be Stupid is the best Devo track ever released

And Mark Mothersbaugh hated how good it was.

Didn't they quit making music and basically say "Al did us better than we can do us"

Ok but you gotta Dance Like an Idiot to it.

Biggest Ball of Twine In Minnesota is a work of pure unadulterated genius

It also feels like he's a better musician than a lot of the people he covers.

I'd wager very few of them are expert accordion players *and* impressive rappers

The walking backwards part of Amish Paradise is extremely impressive. As is the entirety of Couch Potato.

Exceptions: Amish Paradise and The Saga Begins

I once wrote up an impassioned defense of Weird Al’s talent and breadth of skills when someone offhandedly dismissed him as a novelty act, and it still makes me a little proud. He really does deserve the respect.

Frank's 2000" TV is just a really great tune

manic original weird al is the best weird al (everything you know is wrong makes me want to run through a brick wall like the kool-aid man)

It was just a clip, but 'Let me be your hog' remains my favorite song ever. And 'Gotta' Boogie' from the first album is my all.

The original lyrics didn't age well

I mean to his credit it was pretty obviously supposed to be a slur that was leveled at the speaker for looking like a rock star

Yeah I've never heard even the most hair-trigger types say "gasp, Mark Knopfler hates gay people!"

Knopfler to his credit I think stopped playing it live with the f---- slur almost immediately. I suspect he realized was a mistake to include once the song became a huge hit bsky.app/profile/mtsw...

The lyrics to money for nothing are (according to Knopfler) a verbatim transcription of a conversation he heard two guys at a NYC appliance store having. Knopfler (a former newspaper reporter) and took out a pen and wrote it down then adapted that into the lyrics

Yeah. Even if that didn’t happen as told, Dire Straits were very much an MTV band by that point and would be including themselves as part of the slur

just speculating but the fact that word was considered less offensive in the UK than in the USA in the 80's was probably a factor in knopfler's bad decision to include it

I read it that way even as a child, that it was directed at them, and also yes they dropped it certainly by 1989 or so.

goddammit, you had me mentally trawling through the lyrics I'd half forgotten before I remembered the Fword was a millionaire in the song

How do we feel this one's aged? www.youtube.com/watch?v=Swj4...

Dire Straits - Les Boys (Lyrics) - Making Movies (1980)www.youtube.com Support The Channel - https://www.buymeacoffee.com/YoungPilgrim

I'd be more willing to give him a pass on those grounds if it was a one-time thing. But it wasn't the first time he'd engaged in light queer-bashing on a Dire Straits song, so it feels a little more complicated than that. Other than that, though, roaring-ass tune, with a hell of a build-up.

Meanwhile, to get back on topic, what a fucking song, the funniest Knopler's ever been, both lyrically and musically:

Industrial Diseaseyoutu.be Provided to YouTube by Warner Records Industrial Disease · Dire Straits Love Over Gold ℗ 1996 Mercury Records Ltd. (London) Keyboards: Alan Clark Unknown: Barry Bongiovi Synthesizer: Ed Walsh Guitar: Hal Lindes Bass Guitar: John Illsley Guitar, Vocals: Mark Knopfler Producer: Mark Knopfler Engineer: Neil Dorfsman Drums: Pick Withers Unknown: Robert Ludwig Writer: Mark Knopfler Auto-generated by YouTube.

I mean they aged as well as Randy Newman. Obviously the question should be asked if a performer who isn’t part of that community should use the word, but it is absolutely not written as a serious song or statement

Just popped in to say zappa

What kills me about Weird AL is that for the last year or so, I keep reading it Weird A-eye, even though I have been a fan for decades. I blame digital fonts.

I've been to his last couple tours and it's wild how much a show he's still able to put on getting into his 60s!

Yes!

Steve Hyden or Thompson has made a really convincing case he should be in the HoF

Love that Knopfler insisted on playing on it

WHAT?! Amazing.

It was his condition for weird Al doing it. So yeah, that’s Knopfler on it

That's why the guitar sounds just a hair looser than on the original. Because you know Jim West would have nailed it down note for note, inflection for inflection. But when it's Knopfler himself, what were they going to do, say "That's not how he played it"?

I once heard weird Al say that Knopfler wanted to play guitar on Beverly hillbillies but he kept noodling around and couldn’t get the same riff exactly right so they just used weird Al’s guitarists version

im pretty sure he was joking

Maybe, it was during a live commentary on UHF in DC. It seemed sincere?

Heaven knows if they're reliable, but a couple of what seem to be dedicated fans discuss this in the comments to the YouTube video (johngray9808 and interlocutors) and say Al's guitarist Jim West had it nailed, but they went with Knopfler's version. Also apparently Dire Straits' keyboardist?

"Weird Al" Yankovic - Money For Nothing/Beverly Hillbillieswww.youtube.com The words to the "Beverly Hillbillies" theme song set to the tune of "Money For Nothing" by Dire Straits - from "Weird Al" Yankovic's 1989 album "UHF - Origi...

That guitar part is stupendous

Knopfler wrote two of the best guitar riffs in history

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