Though 1983 was the year Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” put five singles on Billboard’s Year-End Top 100 chart, even “Billy Jean” missed the top spot. It finished second to what became The Police and Sting’s signature song, “Every Breath You Take,” the highlight of the band’s best-selling LP, “Synchronicity,” which was just rereleased with lots of demos and studio outtakes.
The song has made much of Sting’s fortune – in 2019 BMI announced it had become the most-played radio song in history. To modern ears the lyrics make the creepy stalker vibe obvious, but the production gives the self-pitying sentiments a suave sheen. Inevitably, lots of people heard it as a love song, as they’re wont to do no matter what the songwriter’s intent. (Bono was amazed to hear that people played “One” at their weddings. “Are you mad?” he said. “It’s about splitting up!”)
That sophisticated feeling was furthered by the groundbreaking video, directed by Kevin Godley and Lol Creme of 10cc. MTV was in the early years of its heyday, and until then most videos simply referenced the song’s lyrics as best the limited budget would allow. Godley and Creme took an art-house cinema approach that lent Sting’s obsessive lyrics a dignified melancholy, undercut by handsome menace that led David Lynch to cast him as Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen in his 1984 film of “Dune.” Because the video never shows the subject of Sting’s soliloquy, some people interpreted the tune as a comment on then-burgeoning electronic surveillance.
The song became a point of contention between Sting and guitarist Andy Summers, who maintains (and Stewart Copeland affirms) that the song was going to be left off the album until Summers came up with his guitar part for it, which tied the song together. Here’s what it sounded like without it, courtesy of the new reissue.
The tune’s simple structure makes it endlessly malleable, as YouTube cover maestro Alex Melton demonstrates in this video. Intended to show how a rhythm section distinguishes a band’s sound, Melton impersonates how 10 different bands would arrange “Every Breath You Take,” and it sounds good no matter how it’s played. If you want to skip his silly intro, the music begins at 0:48.
