Canadian radio stations have been told to censor the 1985 Dire Straits hit Money for Nothing, after a complaint that the lyrics of the Grammy Award-winning song were derogatory to gay men.

A St John’s, Newfoundland, station should have removed the word ‘faggot’ because it violates the country’s human rights standards, according to a ruling by the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council.

A unnamed listener to OZ FM complained to the watchdog after hearing the song, performed by Dire Straits frontman Mark Knopfler and fellow rock star Sting.

Knopfler sings: “That little faggot got his own jet airplane/That little faggot he’s a millionaire” in the song about at the empty fame and fortune of the MTV era.

The council said it realised Dire Straits used the word sarcastically, but while its use might have been acceptable in 1985, it was now an inappropriate label.

OZ FM tried to argue that the song has been played possibly millions of times times since it was released more than 25 years ago, has won various industry awards, including a Grammy in 1986, and remains popular with listeners around the world.

In 2007, it was revealed that 80s hair metal band Motley Crue were the ‘faggots’ in question.

Apparently, members of Dire Straits were in an electronics shop when they spotted a Motley Crue video on a wall of televisions, and the spandex alone was enough for a chart topping single.

At the time, Motley Crue bassist Nikki Sixx (above) said he wasn’t fazed by being called a ‘faggot’.

“I suppose if all you’re being made fun of for is having an earring and tons of money, it’s fairly easy to shake it off,” Sixx said.

“But I still can’t put it out of my head that if these were two rap artists, somebody might wind up dead over a song like this.

He continued: “Oh, and just in case you were wondering, there has been no word on what Tommy Lee thinks of the news, but I’m almost positive that he doesn’t find anything empty about his fame.”

The Canadian ruling comes in the wake of an uproar sparked by a US scholar who decided to publish an edition of Mark Twain’s novel Huckleberry Finn that would remove the word “nigger” to make it less offensive to some readers.

 

[View:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTP2RUD_cL0&feature=player_embedded]