“A completeness”: The 1983 track Mick Jagger thought perfected pop
Part of the beauty of The Rolling Stones is that they were a gruff, imperfect subversion of pop. Mick Jagger was certainly an icon, but he was far from a polished one.
Their music was much the same. No one intends to write a perfect song whenever they pick up a guitar. Sometimes, it comes down to where they were when they started writing, and the track falls out of the sky, fully formed, without them having to find any words.
At that point, the music is practically channelled through the musician, and Jagger knew that there were virtually no flaws to be heard in The Police’s hit ‘Every Breath You Take’. Catchy, concise, with a subtle depth to entertain the keener ear, it is just a bit of devilry and blues riffage away from what the Stones always tried to peddle. Jagger was in awe.
That’s not to say that Jagger doesn’t have a few perfect songs under his belt as well. Tracks like ‘Wild Horses’ and ‘Angie’ are absolutely beautiful in their production, and even the harsher Rolling Stones tunes like ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash’ and ‘Gimme Shelter’ have so few flaws that they seem to be the gold standards for what rock and roll is supposed to be.
But Sting was never concerned with being strictly rock and roll with the Police. There was a good chance that he wanted to be on the radio, but tracks like ‘Roxanne’ and ‘Message in a Bottle’ weren’t exactly sending people into a frenzy the same way that ‘Satisfaction’ did back in the 1960s. This was a more intellectual brand of pop, but ‘Every Breath You Take’ is about as simple as they come.
Throughout almost the entire song, Sting only needs the traditional pop song chords to get through the main verses, so by the time he hits those massive chord stabs in the bridge, it feels like a splash of cold water. But that’s before you dig into the lyrics, which are among some of the strangest to ever appear on a pop tune.
As much as people like to play the track at weddings, hearing someone talk about their devotion to this object of affection has the tone of a stalker slowly moving after its prey. There is some infatuation in the lyrics, to be sure, but the tone comes off like a guy who’s probably going to lock this woman in the trunk of his car a la Eminem’s ‘Stan’ if things don’t go his way.
As Sting said himself, “It sounds like a comforting love song. I didn’t realise at the time how sinister it is. I think I was thinking of Big Brother, surveillance and control.” That dark edge was always going to appeal to anyone in the Stones.
Still, when discussing the concept of a perfect song, Jagger cited The Police’s stalking anthem as an example of how to construct a hit, telling Rolling Stone, “The ones that have a completeness in four minutes – those you can hit right on the nose.”
He continued, “Usually, they’re written quickly. It always happens that I think certain songs are brilliant that other people can’t stand. Like ‘Every Breath You Take.’ It’s very cleverly constructed.”
As simple as the song is, more than a few people have called it out for being a bit too on the nose. It’s not exactly the hardest thing to play a handful of chords, but the key is to play them like The Police can, including Andy Summers’s guitar line that will leave a lot of novice guitar players wondering if they pulled a muscle in their hand when they try to put the whole thing together.
Then again, sometimes, those kinds of rudimentary songs are the most difficult to create. Sure, everyone is able to play three chords after a while, but it takes geniuses to make them sound original again, and both Sting and Jagger have each figured out songs that bend those chords in just the right way.
All this being said, perhaps it was just Jagger’s attempt to finally get the police on side. After all, it was his bandmate, Keith Richards, who once joked, “I’ve never had a problem with drugs, I’ve had a problem with the police.”
