Money For Nothing – Dire Straits

A song that has a massive drum solo at the beginning? Check.

A song that had one of the coolest videos ever? Check

A song that features a massively cool guest vocal appearance? Check

A song that has won a grammy award? Check

A song that features two drummers? Check

A song that has the first video played on MTV Europe? Check

In case there is a need to avoid any confusion, the transcription is based on the Radio Edit not the original album version. The Radio Edit is 4:38, whereas the album version is 8:25………

The fills at the beginning of the track were played by Terry Williams who was a part of Dire Straits at the time the album “Brothers In Arms” was recorded. Williams recorded drum parts for the entire album, but the engineer Neil Dorfsman, decided that the drum tracks weren’t quite right and convinced Mark Knopfler that they needed redoing. To this end, Omar Hakim was flown in from New York and recorded the entire album in three days. Ironically, the only part of Williams’ drum tracks that made it to the final mixes was the drum intro which was conducted rather than recorded with a click track.

The awkward part of this is trying to make sure the transcription is accurate with a click track. To be frank, it isn’t. Three of the fills start on the “e” of the beat but I have elected to put them starting on the “&” for ease. Other than this, the transcription is accurate.

As with all of the content on this site, feel free to share it with other drummers. After all, we’re all in this to help each other!

Dire Straits – Money For Nothing.pdf