Every Breath You Take

"Every Breath You Take"
Single by The Police
from the album Synchronicity
B-side	"Murder by Numbers"
Released	20 May 1983
Format	Vinyl record (7")
Recorded	December 1982 at AIR Studios, Montserrat for basic tracks, then January–February 1983 at Le Studio, Quebec, Canada for overdubs and mixing[1]
Genre	New wave rock
Length	4:13
Label	A&M – AM 117
Writer(s)	Sting
Producer(s)	The Police Hugh Padgham
Certification	Gold (RIAA,[2] BPI)
The Police singles chronology
"Secret Journey" (1982) "Every Breath You Take" (1983) "Wrapped Around Your Finger" (UK, 1983) --- "King of Pain" (US, 1983) Music video Every Breath You Take on YouTube Audio sample file info · help

"Every Breath You Take" is a song by English rock band The Police on the band's 1983 album Synchronicity. Written by Sting, the single was the biggest hit of 1983, topping the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart for eight weeks (the band's only number-one hit on that chart), and the UK Singles Chart for four weeks. It also topped the Billboard Top Tracks chart for nine weeks.

At the 26th Annual Grammy Awards the song was nominated for three Grammy Awards, including Song of the Year, Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals, and Record of the Year, winning in the first two categories. For the song, Sting received the 1983 British Academy's Ivor Novello award for Best Song Musically and Lyrically.^[3]

The song ranked 84th on Rolling Stone's list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time", the highest position of any new wave rock song. It also ranked number 25 on Billboard's Hot 100 All-Time Top Songs.^[4] The song is considered to be both The Police's and Sting's signature song, and in 2010 was estimated to generate between a quarter and a third of Sting's music publishing income.^[5] In the 1983 Rolling Stone critics and readers poll, it was voted "Song of the Year". In the US, it was the best-selling single of 1983 and fifth-best-selling single of the decade. Billboard ranked it as the number-one song for 1983.^[6] In 2015, the song was voted by the British public as the nation's favourite 1980s number one in a poll for ITV.^[7]

Origins and songwriting

Sting wrote the song in 1982 in the aftermath of his separation from Frances Tomelty and the beginning of his relationship with Trudie Styler. The split was controversial. As The Independent reported in 2006, "The problem was, he was already married – to actress Frances Tomelty, who just happened to be Trudie's best friend (Sting and Frances lived next door to Trudie in Bayswater, west London, for several years before the two of them became lovers). The affair was widely condemned." In order to escape from the public eye, Sting retreated in the Caribbean where he started writing the song.^[8] The lyrics are the words of a possessive lover who is watching "every breath you take; every move you make".

I woke up in the middle of the night with that line in my head, sat down at the piano and had written it in half an hour. The tune itself is generic, an aggregate of hundreds of others, but the words are interesting. It sounds like a comforting love song. I didn't realize at the time how sinister it is. I think I was thinking of Big Brother, surveillance and control.

— Sting^[9]

Sting later said he was disconcerted by how many people think the song is more positive than it is. He insists it is about the obsession with a lost lover, and the jealousy and surveillance that follow. "One couple told me 'Oh we love that song; it was the main song played at our wedding!' I thought, 'Well, good luck.'"^[10] When asked why he appears angry in the music video Sting told BBC Radio 2, "I think the song is very, very sinister and ugly and people have actually misinterpreted it as being a gentle little love song, when it's quite the opposite."^[11]

According to the Back to Mono box-set book, "Every Breath You Take" is influenced by a Gene Pitney song titled "Every Breath I Take". The song's structure is a variation on the Classical rondo form with its AABACABA structure, a form rarely found in modern popular music.

The demo of the song was recorded in an eight-track suite in North London's Utopia studios and featured Sting singing over a Hammond organ.^[1] A few months later he presented the song to the other band members when they reconvened at George Martin's AIR Studios in Montserrat to work on the Synchronicity album. While recording, Summers came up with a guitar part inspired by Béla Bartók that would later become a trademark lick, and played it straight through in one take. He was asked to put guitar onto a simple backing track of bass, drums, and a single vocal, with Sting offering no directive beyond "make it your own."^[12] Summers remembers:

This was a difficult one to get, because Sting wrote a very good song, but there was no guitar on it. He had this Hammond organ thing that sounded like Billy Preston. It certainly didn't sound like the Police, with that big, rolling synthesiser part. We spent about six weeks recording just the snare drums and the bass. It was a simple, classic chord sequence, but we couldn't agree how to do it. I'd been making an album with Robert Fripp, and I was kind of experimenting with playing Bartok violin duets and had worked up a new riff. When Sting said 'go and make it your own', I went and stuck that lick on it, and immediately we knew we had something special.

— Andy Summers^[13]

The recording process was fraught with difficulties as personal tensions between the band members, particularly Sting and Stewart Copeland, came to the fore.^[1] Producer Hugh Padgham claimed that by the time of the recording sessions, Sting and Copeland "hated each other", with verbal and physical fights in the studio common.^[1] The tensions almost led to the recording sessions being cancelled until a meeting involving the band and the group's manager, Miles Copeland (Stewart's brother), resulted in an agreement to continue.^[1] Keyboard parts were added from Roland guitar synthesizers, a Prophet-5 and an Oberheim synthesiser.^[1] The single-note piano in the middle eight was recommended by Padgham, inspired by similar work that he had done with the group XTC.^[1] The drum track was largely created through separate overdubs of each percussive instrument, with the main backbeat created by simultaneously playing a snare and a gong drum.^[1] To give the song more liveliness, Padgham asked Copeland to record his drum part in the studio's dining room in order to achieve some "special sound effects". The room was so hot, that his drum sticks had to be taped to Copeland's hands to make sure they didn't fly off.^[1] According to Stewart Copeland:

In my humble opinion, this is Sting's best song with the worst arrangement. I think Sting could have had any other group do this song and it would have been better than our version — except for Andy's brilliant guitar part. Basically, there's an utter lack of groove. It's a totally wasted opportunity for our band. Even though we made gazillions off of it, and it's the biggest hit we ever had.

— Stewart Copeland^[14]

Music video

The song had a music video (directed by duo Godley & Creme) loosely based on Gjon Mili's Jamming the Blues (1944) that was praised for its black-and-white cinematography. MTV (1999), Rolling Stone (1993), & VH1 (2002) named it as one of the best music videos ever, placing it 16th, 61st, & 33rd in their respective top 100 lists. Daniel Pearl won the first MTV cinematography award for his work on the video.^[15]Released in the early days of MTV, Every Breath You Take was one of the earliest videos to enter heavy rotation, a fact that significantly contributed to the popularity of the song. Pop star Richard Marx remembers that "The first video I watched over and over was Every Breath You Take. It was like seeing a Bergman film. Directors usually spelled out every word of the lyrics in a video, but this was the first video I knew that didn't do that. It was abstract." According to A&M co-founder Jeff Ayeroff, "[The video for] Every Breath You Take probably cost $75,000 to $100,000, and we sold over 5 million albums. With a good video, the return on your investment was phenomenal."^[16]

Impact

"Every Breath You Take" was released as a single in 1983, with "Murder by Numbers", a composition by Andy Summers and Sting, on the B-side. "Every Breath You Take" reached the No. 1 spot in the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Israel, Ireland, and South Africa. In the 1983 Rolling Stone critics and readers poll, it was voted "Song of the Year".

Legacy

"Every Breath You Take" has been acclaimed by many critics and publications as one of the greatest songs of all time. It quickly established itself as one of the most popular songs in The Police's repertoire, closing the band's performances before the encores in the Synchronicity Tour (1983-84) and later in The Police Reunion Tour (2007-08).

Sting performed the song at Live Aid at London's Wembley Stadium in 1985, with Phil Collins providing additional vocals, to an estimated global audience of 1.9 billion people watching the live broadcast. Sting performed it again, 20 years later, at Live 8.

In 1999, "Every Breath You Take" was listed as one of the Top 100 Songs of the Century by BMI.^[17][18] In 2003, VH1 ranked the song the No. 2 greatest Break-up song of all time. And also as of 2003, Sting was still taking in an average of $2000 per day in royalties for the then 20-year-old song.^[19]

The Police performed the song at their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003 with Gwen Stefani, Steven Tyler and John Mayer on backing vocals.

In 2007 Andy Summers called his photography book I'll Be Watching You: Inside The Police 1980–1983 after the lyrics of the song.

In October 2007, Sting was awarded a Million-Air certificate for 9 million airplays of "Every Breath You Take" at the BMI Awards show in London, with only Van Morrison's "Brown Eyed Girl" a close second at 8 million air plays.^[20]

Accolades

• "Every Breath You Take" has been ranked as the 94th best song of all time, as well as the third best song of 1983, in an aggregation of critics' lists at acclaimedmusic.net.
• Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time placed it at No. 84.
• It is one of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.^[21]
• It ranked No. 25 on Billboard's Hot 100 All-Time Top Songs.^[4]
• In 1989, "Every Breath You Take" was voted No. 95 by Rolling Stone on its list of the "100 Best Singles of the Last 25 Years".
• In 2001, the RIAA's Songs of the Century placed the song 44th (out of 365).
• The song came in at No. 424 in Q's list of the "1001 Greatest Songs Ever" in 2003.
• In 2004, "Every Breath You Take" was ranked No. 216 in WXPN's list of The 885 All-Time Greatest Songs.
• In 2005, Blender ranked the song at No. 315 on its list of the "The 500 Greatest Songs Since You Were Born".
• In 2000, the song appeared at No. 42 on Rolling Stone's list of "100 Greatest Pop Songs", compiled by Rolling Stone and MTV music critics to rank songs released since The Beatles' breakthrough.
• In 2015 "Every Breath You Take" topped the poll in ITV's "The Nation's Favourite 80s Number One" show.
• VH1 ranked the song No. 46 on the "100 Greatest Songs of the 80s" countdown in its series The Greatest.

Notable appearances in other media

• In 1984, a version of the song was used for a sequence at the end of the first series of the satirical puppet show Spitting Image. The title was altered to "Every Bomb You Make", and alternate lyrics were written by Quentin Reynolds and James Glen.^[22] The video featured puppets of several world leaders projected over a setting sun. On the line "I'll be watching you", the puppet of Death appears. Sting himself performed the re-recording.^[22]
• James Corden performed the song with Sting on a New York City sidewalk across from the Ed Sullivan Theater for The Late Late Show cold open immediately following David Letterman's final episode of The Late Show on May 20, 2015.^[23]

Track listing

7": A&M / AM 117

1. "Every Breath You Take" – 4:13
2. "Murder by Numbers" – 4:31

2x7": A&M / AM 117

1. "Every Breath You Take" – 4:13
2. "Murder by Numbers" – 4:31

1. "Man in a Suitcase" (Live) – 2:18
2. "Truth Hits Everybody '83" – 3:34

• Rare 2x7" single

Personnel

• Sting – lead and backing vocals, bass guitar, keyboards
• Andy Summers – guitar, piano
• Stewart Copeland – drums

Charts and sales

Peak positions Chart (1983–1984) Peak position Australia (ARIA)[24] 8 Austria (Ö3 Austria Top 40)[25] 8 Belgium (VRT Top 30 Flanders)[26] 8 Canada (RPM)[27] 1 Germany (Official German Charts)[28] 8 Ireland (IRMA)[29] 1 Italy (FIMI)[30] 3 Netherlands (Dutch Top 40)[31] 3 New Zealand (Recorded Music NZ)[32] 6 Norway (VG-lista)[33] 2 South Africa (Springbok Radio Top 20)[34] 1 Spain (AFYVE)[35] 3 Sweden (Sverigetopplistan)[36] 2 Switzerland (Schweizer Hitparade)[37] 6 UK Singles Chart[38] 1 US Billboard Hot 100[39] 1 US Billboard Adult Contemporary[39] 5 US Billboard Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks[39] 1 Chart (2015) Peak position Poland (Polish Airplay Top 100)[40] 60

Year-end chart Charts (1983) Position US Billboard Hot 100 1 End-of-decade charts End of decade (1980–1989) Position US Billboard Hot 100 4 Certifications Region Certification Italy (FIMI)[41] Gold United Kingdom (BPI)[42] Silver United States (RIAA)[43] Gold

Samples and cover versions

Six months after the release of "Every Breath You Take", singer Ray Parker, Jr. released the single "I Still Can't Get Over Loving You", the lyrics of which bore a striking similarity to "Every Breath You Take", even including the lines "Every breath you take, I'll be watching you."^[44]

Sting also riffs on the lyrics in his song "Love Is the Seventh Wave", singing "Every breath you take/every move you make/every cake you bake/every leg you break..."

The Shadows did an instrumental version on Moonlight Shadows (1986).

The Puff Daddy song "I'll Be Missing You" (1997) samples the guitar part of the song, and the chorus is an interpolation of the lyrics.

In 2016 Cassetteboy used the music with edited videos of David Cameron and Theresa May as part of protests against the Draft Investigatory Powers Bill.^[45]

See also

• List of number-one singles of 1983 (Ireland)
• List of number-one singles from the 1980s (UK)
• List of Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles of 1983
• List of number-one mainstream rock hits (United States)

References

1. Buskin, Richard (March 2004). "Classic Tracks: The Police's 'Every Breath You Take'". Sound on Sound.
2. RIAA Gold & Platinum Searchable Database – The Police Singles, Retrieved 20 July 2009
3. Lister, David, Pop ballads bite back in lyrical fashion, The Independent, 28 May 1994
4. "The Billboard Hot 100 All-Time Top Songs". Billboard. 20 September 2008. Retrieved 8 July 2009.
5. According to Sting's former publisher Tom Bradley. "Writing a Super Hit" by David Hepworth, The Word No. 86, April 2010, p. 74
6. Billboard Year-End Hot 100 singles of 1983
7. Westbrook, Caroline (25 July 2015). "The Nation’s Favourite 80s Number One: 12 more classic 80s chart-toppers which didn’t make the cut". Metro. Retrieved 27 July 2015.
8. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/trudie-styler-the-truth-about-trudie-410523.html
9. "Interview Date: May 1993".
10. American Top 40 broadcast with Casey Kasem.
11. "Song Library: Every Breath You Take". BBC Radio 2. Retrieved 8 July 2009. (Spoken in the second Sting audio clip.)
12. Summers, Andy (2006). One Train Later: A Memoir, Thomas Dunne Books, pp. 323–324.
13. "Interview Date: April 2000".
14. "Interview Date: April 2000".
15. Fisher, Bob. "A Conversation with Daniel Pearl". International Cinematographers Guild. Retrieved 25 October 2006.
16. Craig Marks and Rob Tannenbaum, I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of The Music Video Revolution, Dutton, New York, 2011
17. "Top 100 Songs of the Century". Bmi.com. 13 December 1999. Retrieved 25 August 2011.
18. "Complete list of Top 100 Songs". Archer2000.tripod.com. Retrieved 25 August 2011.
19. "CBS – 60 Minutes II 'Sting: All This Time'". CBS News. 19 December 2003.
20. "2007 BMI London Awards". Bmi.com. 16 October 2007. Retrieved 25 August 2011.
21. "Experience the Music: One Hit Wonders and the Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll". Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Retrieved 5 February 2015.
22. Chester, Lewis (1986). Tooth & Claw: The Inside Story of Spitting Image. Faber and Faber. pp. 90–91. ISBN 0-571-14557-4.
23. "Watch James Corden sing his goodbye to David Letterman with Sting". Entertainment Weekly. 21 May 2015. Retrieved 21 May 2015.
24. "Australian-charts.com – The Police – Every Breath You Take". ARIA Top 50 Singles.
25. "Austriancharts.at – The Police – Every Breath You Take" (in German). Ö3 Austria Top 40.
26. "Every Breath You Take THE POLICE". radio2.be. Retrieved 7 March 2010.
27. "Top Singles – Volume 38, No. 19, July 09 1983". collectionscanada.gc.ca. Retrieved 7 March 2010.
28. "Musicline.de – The Police Single-Chartverfolgung" (in German). Media Control Charts. PhonoNet GmbH.
29. "Search the Charts". irishcharts.ie. Retrieved 11 March 2010.
30. "PoliceIndice per Interprete: P". musicline.de. Retrieved 7 March 2010.
31. "Nederlandse Top 40 – The Police search results" (in Dutch) Dutch Top 40.
32. "Charts.org.nz – The Police – Every Breath You Take". Top 40 Singles.
33. "Norwegiancharts.com – The Police – Every Breath You Take". VG-lista.
34. "SA Charts 1969 – 1989". rock.co.za. Retrieved 7 March 2010.
35. Salaverri, Fernando (September 2005). Sólo éxitos: año a año, 1959–2002 (1st ed.). Spain: Fundación Autor-SGAE. ISBN 84-8048-639-2.
36. "Swedishcharts.com – The Police – Every Breath You Take". Singles Top 100.
37. "Swisscharts.com – The Police – Every Breath You Take". Swiss Singles Chart.
38. "Every Breath You Take". chartstats.com. Retrieved 7 March 2010.
39. "Billboard Singles". allmusic.com. Retrieved 7 March 2010.
40. "Listy bestsellerów, wyróżnienia :: Związek Producentów Audio-Video". Polish Airplay Top 100. Retrieved 23 November 2015.
41. "Italian single certifications – The Police – Every Breath You Take" (in Italian). Federazione Industria Musicale Italiana. Retrieved 7 February 2013. Select Online in the field Sezione. Enter The Police in the field Filtra. The certification will load automatically
42. "British single certifications – The Police – Every Breath You Take". British Phonographic Industry. Retrieved 7 February 2013. Enter Every Breath You Take in the field Keywords. Select Title in the field Search by. Select single in the field By Format. Select Silver in the field By Award. Click Search
43. "American single certifications – The Police – Every Breath You Take". Recording Industry Association of America. Retrieved 7 February 2013. If necessary, click Advanced, then click Format, then select Single, then click SEARCH
44. "Ray Parker, Jr. – I Still Can't Get Over Loving You". BackToThe80s.com. Retrieved 12 September 2010.
45. "Cassetteboy vs The Snoopers' Charter". YouTube. Retrieved 10 April 2016.

External links

• Classic Tracks: The Police's 'Every Breath You Take'
• Lyrics of this song at MetroLyrics