After two complaints about the British rock band Dire Strait’s controversial lyrics in the song Money for Nothing had been dismissed, the third finally reached the ears of the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council, and on January 12, the song was banned from radio station play across the country.
Due to the public outcry and about 250 letters that followed, the Canadian Radio and Television Commission has stepped in and asked the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council to review their decision to ban the 1985 Grammy-winning song that went on to become the band’s most well-known song and to some, a rock classic, due to its use of the term "faggot,” discriminatory towards homosexuals.
“Given the exceptional nature of this situation, the Commission has asked the CBSC to appoint a panel with a national composition to review the complaints," wrote CRTC Secretary General Robert Morin, who asked that the age and origin of ‘Money for Nothing,’ as well as its intended message, be considered in the evaluation.
According to a 1985 interview, guitarist Mark Knopfler told a music critic that the song lyrics are written from the point of view of a working-class man watching music videos in an appliance store and commenting on what he sees. The singer, as the narrating character, refers to a musician "banging on the bongos like a chimpanzee" and describes a singer as "that little faggot with the earring and the make-up," and bemoans that these artists get "money for nothing and chicks for free.”
These lyrics were criticized as being sexist, racist, and homophobic, and in some later releases of the song the lyrics were edited for airplay; "faggot" for example is often replaced with "mother.”