Classic Dire Straits song Money for Nothing banned in Canada

[Switch]

It wasn't called CGI back then -- just computer animation

We call it CGI now.

Of course. But it bugs me the same way as someone talking about the Enterprise in Trek TOS sending down an "away team."

It's a LANDING PARTY, dammit!

Yeah, yeah ... I liked the old US Navy classification system where a 'Frigate' was larger than a 'Destroyer' too.

 

[PKTrekGirl]

I'm actually okay with Mark Knopfler censoring himself - after all, it's his song and he can sing it how he likes.

I'm less comfortable with radio stations - especially if they are arms of the government, censoring material.

I don't listen to any radio stations that would play that song...these days, I would mostly hear it while watching Dire Straits YouTube videos. And there, sometimes you get the original and sometimes the PC version...but pretty much always as Mark sang it in that performance.

 

[scotpens]

Yeah, yeah ... I liked the old US Navy classification system where a 'Frigate' was larger than a 'Destroyer' too.

“Frigate”? Is that a euphemism for something?

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Ironic, since most of the lyrics to this song were not, technically, written by Knopfler at all. The lyrics are the comments that a TV salesman was making in a store where Knopfler was shopping.

 

[scotpens]

Ironic, since most of the lyrics to this song were not, technically, written by Knopfler at all. The lyrics are the comments that a TV salesman was making in a store where Knopfler was shopping.

That’s like saying John Lennon didn’t really write “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite” because the lyrics were taken almost verbatim from the text on a nineteenth-century circus poster. Lennon still wrote the damn song.

 

[barnaclelapse]

Some years ago I interviewed the creator of the Cerebus the Aardvark comic book, Dave Sim. He pointed out something that has stuck with me - that while Canada likes to think we're the same as (and often better than) the United States in many areas, we do not actually have the equivalent of the First Amendment up here.

Uh.

2. Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms:
(a) freedom of conscience and religion;
(b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;
(c) freedom of peaceful assembly; and
(d) freedom of association.

Also, I don't really see what the big deal is here; this sort of thing happens all the time in broadcast media. To use a more recent example, when was the last time you heard an uncensored version of Ce-Lo Green's "Fuck You" on the radio?

Of course it happens all the time, and I don't think it points to any kind of apocalypse (that's what "Jersey Shore" is for), but it's still disappointing.

 

[stoneroses]

I went to the same school as Knopfler, however I am not a massive fan. When it come to chopping up songs and cutting things out of books I think it is rarely justified.