Songs that disparage other artists in the lyrics

I looked up the lyrics and the Hair Metal interp doesn't fit, as the song's clearly about an artist who's old and has been around too long.

Kind of like Morrissey in 2020!

 

As per Wikipedia:

Lyrics

Mark Knopfler described the writing of the song in a 1984 interview with critic Bill Flanagan:

The lead character in "Money for Nothing" is a guy who works in the hardware department in a television/custom kitchen/refrigerator/microwave appliance store. He's singing the song. I wrote the song when I was actually in the store. I borrowed a bit of paper and started to write the song down in the store. I wanted to use a lot of the language that the real guy actually used when I heard him, because it was more real....

In 2000, Knopfler appeared on Parkinson on BBC One and explained again where the lyrics originated. According to Knopfler, he was in New York and stopped by an appliance store. At the back of the store, they had a wall of TVs which were all tuned to MTV. Knopfler said there was a man working there dressed in a baseball cap, work boots, and a checkered shirt delivering boxes who was standing next to him watching. As they were standing there watching MTV, Knopfler remembers the man coming up with lines such as "what are those, Hawaiian noises?...that ain't workin'," etc. Knopfler asked for a pen to write some of these lines down and then eventually put those words to music. The first-person narrating character in the lyrics refers to a musician "banging on the bongos like a chimpanzee" and a woman "stickin' in the camera, man we could have some fun". He describes a singer as "that little ****** with the earring and the make-up", and bemoans that these artists get "money for nothing and chicks for free".

Mötley Crüe bassist Nikki Sixx claimed that the song was about his band's outrageous lifestyle. In an interview, he related an apocryphal story that the members of Dire Straits were in a store that sold televisions, and a row of TVs were all playing Mötley Crüe videos.

The songwriting credits are shared between Mark Knopfler and Sting. Sting has stated[citation needed] that his only compositional contribution was the "I want my MTV" line, which followed the melody from his song "Don't Stand So Close to Me". "Sting used to come to Montserrat to go windsurfing," recalled John Illsley, "and he came up for supper at the studio. We played him 'Money for Nothing' and he turned round and said, 'You've done it this time, you bastards.' Mark said if he thought it was so good, why didn't he go and add something to it. He did his bit there and then."

 

Pink in "Don't Let Me Get Me":

LA told me, "You'll be a pop star
All you have to change is everything you are."
Tired of being compared to damn Britney Spears
She's so pretty, that just ain't me

LA is L.A. Reid, who fought against the direction Pink was taking on the album Missundaztood, from which the song was issued as a single.

 

Oops - wires got crossed here.

For reasons I can't explain, I thought your comments about Hair Metal bands was in relation to the Morrissey song, not "Money For Nothing".

Sorry - my goof!

No argument on the interp of "MFN", even before the Wiki citation!

 

point proven!
so clever...ugh

 

Frank Zappa - "I Have Been In You"

Disparaging Peter Frampton for the creepy innuendo he spewed on us with "I'm In You".

 

Don McLean "American Pie" had a thinly veiled hatchet job on Mick Jagger, basically painting Jagger as the devil at Altamont. McLean got downright nasty - hitting pretty low with the "Jack Flash sat on a candlestick" if you ask me:

So come on, Jack be nimble, Jack be quick
Jack Flash sat on a candlestick
'Cause fire is the devil's only friend

Oh, and as I watched him on the stage
My hands were clenched in fists of rage
No angel born in Hell
Could break that Satan's spell

And as the flames climbed high into the night
To light the sacrificial rite
I saw Satan laughing with delight
The day the music died

Sanctimonious little whiner.

 

I could name a ton of songs but the first one that came to mind is Crass “Punk Is Dead”

“CBS promote the Clash, It ain’t for revolution, it’s just for cash”

“Steve Jones you're napalm,
If you're so pretty (vacant) why do you swarm?
Patti Smith you're napalm,
You write with your hand but it's Rimbaud's arm”

 

Yeah. It's sad when the hunter becomes the hunted. I'm anti hunting across the board btw.

 

And dig the Beatles album (and Stones and Elvis, among others, in this great picture sleeve). It's hard to see in the small picture. The album on the far left is Please Please Me. Then from left to right, Never Mind The Bollocks, The Rolling Stones (1st album), The Clash (1st album), Highway 61 Revisited, Elvis Presley (1st album).

 

It sounds like CBS is being disparaged, not The Clash. The band did their own disparaging of the label. One example is when "Remote Control" was released as a single without their consent. They sang about it in "Complete Control": "They said release 'Remote Control'/but we didn't want it on the label." In "White Man in Hammersmith Palais" they sang, "Ya think it's funny/turning rebellion into money".

 

Another one from New Radicals.

*I burned my Beatles records
Because she hated number nine*

 

Sure, but I think it’s more likely a criticism of the Clash being in business with CBS a at all. “Revolutionaries” working for a multi-national corporation wasn’t really the Crass way of thinking.

 

"Cars and Girls" from Prefab Sprout is a swipe at Springsteen.

 

Did they take a swipe at Brian Wilson, too?

 

“Well, hello Adam, where you been?
I said a'stand aside 'cause I'm feelin' mean,
I've had a gutful of you and I'm feelin' bad
'Cause you're an ugly old pirate and ain't I glad.”

Captain Sensible dissing Adam Ant in “Wot”

 

Not in that song.

 

I've wondered if "Into The Great Wide Open" was directed at anyone in particular. I heard a guy in a bar try to argue that it was a shot at Eddie Vedder, but that makes no sense at all.

 

Yes.. I remember hearing Mark Knofler tell the story about being in a NYC applaince store,and the TVs being displayed had MTV on. He overheard one of the workers make a homophobic remark about one of "pretty boys" on MTV. His coworker commented'"Oh yea? that F#gg*t has his own jet airplane,and he's a millionaire". That's how the idea of the song started.

 

"(c)rap songs"??
That's an oxymoron if I ever saw one.

 

Thrasher - Neil Young. Calls out his band mates in CSNY for complacency and artistic sloth. A great lyrical journey of his perspective on moving ahead artistically while/by leaving your contemporaries behind.

 

This thread is kind of dormant right now, but I recently recalled a twist on the theme.
"No Bad Religion song can make your life complete."
- "No Direction," by Bad Religion

 

Maybe not "disparaging" so much as a sad portrait of an alcoholic, Sean O'Hagan/High Llamas' "Perry Como".

 

Smooth Dancer
(Gillan taking shots at Blackmore)