Everyone knows “Every Breath You Take”. It is the biggest hit that The Police ever had. One of the most famous songs by the eighties. For eight weeks he was in the US charts in the summer of 1983. In 2019, BMI officially declared him the “most played song in radio history” and broke the 22-year record of “You’ve Lost That Lovin ‘Feelin'”. In 1997 he was at the top for another eleven weeks when Diddy and Faith Evans made the hip-hop homage to the late NOTORIOUS BIG: “I’ll be Missing you”. It is one of the most popular songs in the world – the most famous hit that Sting has ever written.
From studio briefs to the lawsuit
Or not? This is exactly a legal question. This week the music world hit a shock when his ex-band colleagues Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland sued him in front of the London High Court. They demand to be named and paid for 42 years after the publication of “Every Breath You Take”.
As is well known, the three British hatched, so maybe that only seems like the latest round of their endless quarrels. They picked up the song while they were fighting regularly in the studio. Sting said he played half the “Synchronicity” tour with a broken rib after beating himself with Copeland behind the stage. But this is unique: there is no precedent that such a famous band argues in court about songwriting credits for a loved one decades later. (The band may have complained in bars, but never complained.) Who, please, run for 42 years of war for a love song?
The special thing about here: there is no ambiguity about who did what. Nobody has ever denied that Sting wrote the texts, chords and the melody – as almost always at The Police. “Our current single, ‘Every Breath You Take’, wrote itself, mostly because it comes from a very old tradition,” Sting told Musician Magazine in 1983. “It is very atavistic and yet it means something today. I woke up in Jamaica in the middle of the night, sat down at the piano, and the chords and the song came in ten minutes. I wrote it down, went back to bed. There is still a way to say: there is still something meaningful and useful in the old way of writing a rock’n’roll ballad. of sadness. “
Summers’ reef as a bound apple
His original demo was a completely finished song, with a Hammond organ part, which they later replaced by Andy Summers’ guitar Arpeggios. The demo contains the same words and the same melody as the final version of the 1983 success album “Synchronicity”. But in recent years, the 82-year-old Summers claims that his reef deserves co-authorship. “‘Every Breath You Take’ would have hiked in the trash until I played on it,” said Summers in 2023 in Jeremy Whites Podcast. “It is a very controversial topic – it is very lively at the moment.” He already indicated legal steps at the time: “Watch the press, let’s see what will happen next year. I can’t say more.”
The three members of The Police have not yet commented on the lawsuit. Sting and his company Magnetic Publishing Limited are listed as co -accused. In 2022, Sting sold the rights to its entire songwriting catalog-solo and with The Police-to Universal Music Group for an estimated $ 250 million.
It was the biggest hit in 1983, but he never left the radio waves – with his seductive sound and his eerie mood. For decades, no one seriously questioned that Sting wrote him, as he wrote all other hits. But all three play brilliantly here: Summers’ guitar, Copeland’s massive snare, Sting’s bass roar at minute 2:58. You can hear what everyone is playing at any time because Hugh Padgham’s production is so clear and economical. The only puzzle in the sound is the strange but great clattering piano – played by Sting. He does what Neil Young “Cinnamon Girl” did with a one-tone guitar solo with a one-tone piano solo.
Songwriting or just arrangement?
So there is no doubt what everyone has contributed. The argument only revolves around what “songwriting” is – and what only “arrangement”. Musicians have been discussing this for ages, but in the past money was made with record sales. Today they broke away, so royalties from publishing rights are more important than ever. With increasing age of the musicians – and growing thirst of their grandchildren – the fights become uglier. As Adam Gopnik wrote in the “New Yorker”: “Every biography or memoir from the music world is a book about music publishers in the end.” Spandau Ballet songwriter Gary Kemp was once sued by his bandmates-except his brother. Was the “True” saxophonist entitled to a fifth of the authorship? According to the judge: No.
Sting itself often said that “Every Breath You Take” was not the most original song in the world. In 1993 he confessed in an interview: “‘So Lonely’ I stole completely from Bob Marley. ‘No Woman, No Cry’ faster, with slightly different melody. Slidin ‘Away’ by Paul Simon, and the lyrics are not particularly original – directly from a damn rhyme lexicon.
Fights in the studio
No wonder that the recording sessions were like war, with fights in the studio. “Sting wanted Stewart to just play a very straight rhythm, without Fills or something,” recalled producer Padgham. “And that was the complete opposite of Stewart’s style. Stewart said: ‘I want to play my damn drum part!’ And Sting said: ‘I don’t want you to play your damn drum party! – And so it went on. Copeland himself said: “The moments when I was closest to kill him were when he came to me and wanted to tell me something about the Hi-Hat.”
The fights continued until Summers brought his Arpeggio reef. “I didn’t put myself up and brown it,” he told the “Guitar World” in 2022. “It was more about satisfying these other bastards.” He sees it like this: he saved the song. “Otherwise the song would have been thrown away. Sting and Stewart could not agree on how bass and drums should run. We were in the middle of ‘Synchronicity’ and Sting said: ‘Well, make it your own.’ I played it in a take. Sting told the same story: “Musically I wrote the song and the guitar parts and then said to Andy: ‘Make it your own.'”
Permanent dispute over songwriting
They constantly fought for songwriting, even in the early days. Copeland and Summers received one or two credits per album. “The main problem was songwriting,” said Sting later. “I gave up part of my publisher rights just to keep the band together. Everyone wanted to be a songwriter.” Wasn’t it obvious that he was the writer of hits? “I can’t really answer that, but I was the one who wrote all hits. I thought that was undisputed. But we still had countless fights about it.”
Summers and Copeland were also allowed to contribute songs to “Synchronicity” – with rather weak results. Summers delivered the “insulting terrible” “Mother”, which recently reached first in Rolling Stone’s list “Terrible Songs on Great Albums” (before “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer”). Copeland’s “Miss Gradenko” was not quite as bad as “Mother”. But placing both songs on the same album as “Every Breath You Take”, “King of Pain” and “Wrapped Around Your Finger” was scandalous. In comparison, even “de doo doo doo, de da da da there” looks like a masterpiece à la Nabokov.
Gloss performance away from Sting
After all: Summers wrote the best piece on “Ghost in the Machine” with “Omegaman”. He also invented “Behind My Camel”, who won the Grammy for “Best Rock Instrumental” in 1980. Sting hated the song so much that he buried the tape in the garden until Andy excavated it. Copeland delivered highlights on “Reggatta de Blanc”, such as “Does Everyone Stare”. Later he found his creative niche in film soundtracks like Francis Ford Coppola’s “Rumble Fish”. “My compositions go largely into external projects,” he said. “Because in the band there is a kind of unity of the sound at Sting’s material, and I know what to do with it.”
The Police dissolved shortly after “Every Breath You Take”, after the “Synchronicity” stadium tour-from pure mutual hatred. In 1986 they met briefly for a weak remake of “Don’t stood so close to me”, 1992 at Stings wedding and in 2007 for a high-lucrative reunion tour. They also played at Al Gores “Live Earth” concert-with John Mayer on the guitar and Kanye West, who rapped: “Sting, you the only polic good in the Hood.” The next joint project only came this week when jazz musician Christian McBride published his new album-with “Murder by Numbers”, a B-side song, the Sting and Summers. Both play on the McBride version-hopefully in separate rooms to avoid a bloodbath.
A dark love song
Ironic that this wedding hit has such a conflict -rich history of origin – and becomes more conflict -loaded with the lawsuit. But the saga is full of strange details. For example: “More Than I Can Say” by Leo Sayer, an almost forgotten top ten hit from 1981. When I heard “Every Breath You Take” for the first time, I thought: “How do they get through with it?” Answer: They got through because it didn’t notice anyone. Sayer’s version sounds almost identical, even if The Police probably never heard her.
And puff daddy’s version? Sting told the Rolling Stone: “With the income I brought a few of my children through the college.” Last autumn he said that the trial against the rap mogul did not “tasty” the song: “It is still my song.”
Historical comparisons
So far, the dispute in The Band has been considered the most notorious case. Drummer Levon Helm was shot against Robbie Robertson for years because of the credits. (Helm’s claims were put into perspective by the fact that he had a long solo career, but hardly wrote songs.) Robertson said in 2000: “I wrote songs before I met Levon at all. I’m sorry, I just worked harder than everyone else. Someone had to go ahead. The boys were responsible for the arrangements – but that’s their job.”
A “poisoned” classic
However, the song was always personal for Sting. “It is superficially a love song, very seductive and romantic,” he said. “But in truth it is about checking someone to the last and monitoring their movements.” Many fans overlooked this dark level. “It’s not like ‘Stand by Me’ that has only a noble meaning. ‘Every Breath You Take’ is very ambiguous and quite evil.”
As an antidote, Sting wrote his solo hit “If you love somebody, set theme free”. “I had to write the antidot after poisoning people with this terrible song,” he said. Maybe that’s the reason why the conflict about this song never ends. It is a timeless classic with a long, twisted story. And 42 years after his triumphal march, the story of “Every Breath You Take” is still bizarre.