I wanted to do a second version that way but I never had time. I actually used 'little faggot,' but there are a couple of good 'motherfuckers'in there. It just went better with the song, it was more muscular. I wanted to use a lot of the language that the real guy actually used when I heard him, because it was more real. I borrowed a bit of paper and started to write the song down in the store. I wrote the song when I was actually in the store. The lead character in 'Money for Nothing' is a guy who works in the hardware department in a telvision/custom kitchen/refrigerator/microwave appliance store. We had done our turn when we saw them and I thought, 'God, what's the difference?' I mean, look at 'Les Boys.' We're not gay, but they did cabaret and we do loads of shows. I suppose there's nearly always some connection. If it's done properly, then part of the fun is to make that jump - it's good for the imagination. It's really a song that a woman should sing, but to my mind, a man should be able to just as easily, and if it's done well, you should be able to make that adjustment. I think if I was to sing 'Private Dancer,' 'All the men come in these places,' the audience would know it was a character, they'd be able to make that adjustment. It's like Randy Newman talking about being a closet gay truck driver. There's nothing very heavy about it, it's just an experiment in character and playwriting. I was just trying to get in the mind of somebody who's lived his life that way. It's always interesting to me that any kind of heavy censorship, like book burnings, has always failed in the long run. You might see somebody who's just not at peace with himself. On some levels, you can almost see a Hess-like figure, in the depths of Spandau. On 'The Man's Too Strong', I tried to do a study in guilt and hatred and fear. You take the part of somebody else, you're just not that person. MK: Well, I've never felt moved to write about particularly obscene people - I've gotten close, writing about people who are very, very different from me like 'Les Boys'. I'm not advocating adverse circumstanses, but if they come you have to create from it.Д«F: What have you been unable to write about? Rather than leave it thay make something with it. It wasn't conscious, but I see the Sultans, Les Bouys, the roller skate girl, and Romeo all change disadvantage into advantage. Like someone who could write a book in prison. To crystallize: If you can turn negative energy into positive, turn a dire straits situation, excuse the term, into one that is positive, you're not going to go under, you're creating. I took more time to record 'Romeo and Juliet' because it took more time to write and demanded special attention. I wasn't felling good or collected when I wrote 'Solid Rock' I deliberately wrote and recorded that and 'Expresso Love' fast. Some of those songs were written during a period of turbulence. That break gave me the time to consider all that had happened and to express it in terms of music. I decided against being waylaid, to be a survivor instead of casualty. I was going on, to do what I knew I could do. On that record I was determined I would not be immobilized by anything. Making Movies was closer to what I like to do. But having said that, I still don't think it was a very good record. Tha hang-up about CommuniquГ© was an American thing. In a lot of countries it did better than the first. Just for the record, CommuniquГ© did sell three million copies. You wrote the making Movies album, went to New York that summer to record it, and came back with a stronger sound and a positive attitude. Then, in early 1980, you pulled the band off the road and made it clear you were calling the shots. During this time the band toured constantly. In America it was often written off as a rehash. The second album, CommuniquГ©, was already in the can when the first one came out. MK = Mark Knopfler, lead guitarist and lead singer in Dire StraitsД«F: Let's run through some history: Your first album, Dire Straits, released six months later in America than in the rest of the world, was a smash, sold millions of copies. An Interview With Mark Knopfler The Interview of Interviews!Д«F = Bill Flanagan, interviewer and writer of the book 'Written In My Soul'

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