“Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them.”
— John Steinbeck
Inspiration has a way of sneaking up on us when we least expect it. More often than not, our best ideas come not from long hours of deep thought, but from mundane and unexpected moments.
Mark Knopfler, frontman of Dire Straits, found this out firsthand when he stumbled upon the idea for his hit song Money for Nothing in the most ordinary of places — an appliance store.
As the story goes, Mark passed by a section in the store that had a huge wall of televisions, all of which were tuned to MTV. There, he overheard an employee complaining about rock stars.
Watching the glamorous, fast-paced world depicted on those television screens, the man complained about how rockstars made “money for nothing”, while average people like himself were doing backbreaking work every day for little money.
Mark, recognizing the raw honesty in the man’s words, quickly borrowed a piece of paper and jotted them down. The rest of the song practically wrote itself, as much of the lyrics were quoted from the man’s exact words.
The amazing thing is, this wasn’t the first time inspiration had struck Mark in an unexpected moment. Years earlier, his other hit song Sultans of Swing came about when he visited a near-empty pub one night. He watched as a struggling jazz band played their set to an indifferent audience.
When they finished, the lead singer enthusiastically said his thank yous and announced, “We are the Sultans of Swing.” That contrast between their grandiose band name and the drab reality of their situation struck a chord in Mark, and a song took shape.
These moments prove that creativity isn’t about waiting for the perfect idea. It’s about simply recognizing one when it appears. Much life itself, inspiration rarely follows a formula or structure. It emerges in the most ordinary settings, often when we’re not looking for it — sometimes in a passing remark, a fleeting scene, or, as in Mark Knopfler’s case, the unfiltered words of someone who doesn’t even realize they’re writing the first lines of a song.
Jimi Hendrix once spoke about the unpredictable nature of inspiration. He was asked where his ideas for his songs came from. He replied, “From the people, from the traffic, from everything out there. The whole world influences me. Everybody and everything is music.
“You don’t plan songwriting,” he continued. “You don’t get into a certain groove to write a song. You can get inspiration for a song any time, because music is just what you feel. The ideas come very easily. It’s just getting the song together to where it’s acceptable.”
Ultimately, isn’t this the essence of creativity? It’s not something to be forced, but something to be noticed. You just never know when — or how — a good idea might present itself.
As a matter of fact, I’m writing this article in my car. I was planning to just get home from work, when I put on Money For Nothing on repeat and suddenly had the idea for this article.
The world is constantly offering us inspiration. The key is to pay attention to it, and to be ready when an idea arrives.
Izzat Zailan 