The four Police songs Andy Summers is most proud of
A good guitar line can make or break a song. It can take an average track and turn it into an anthem, or take a hit and ruin it. The Police’s Andy Summers knows that well.
Summers had good training for it. As a kid, he was obsessed with jazz, seeing Thelonious Monk in concert, and first cutting his teeth by learning to play like the jazz masters. It gave him a unique approach, so even when he did eventually pivot to rock, finding a place in the UK’s booming scene in the 1960s, he was still handling his guitar different to his peers.
Really, he was handling it with more intrigue. Summers was never just coming in and busting out the same four chords and the same classic riffs. Building on top of his love for jazz with a deep love for the likes of Jimi Hendrix, and then even some time spent at university studying classical guitar, more and more dimensions kept being added to his playing.
By the time Summers met his future The Police bandmates, he had the confidence and the know-how to back it up. The line he delivered to the group’s drummer, Stewart Copeland, sums it all up. “Stewart, you and that bass player, you’ve got something,” he said, “But you need me in the band – and I accept.”
They did need him. Even though Sting is an icon now, and Copeland’s powerful percussion gave them energy, almost every The Police hit is led by a strong riff. It’s like the iconic opening to ‘Roxanne’, or the finger picking that begins ‘Every Breath You Take’, the opening riff to ‘Message In A Bottle’, or the chorus to ‘Don’t Stand So Close To Me’.
Summers’ guitar lines gave them energy and vibrancy, he made these songs feel new and fresh thanks to his varied influences, and he knows that. “That’s what put the icing on the cake and made the song,” Summers said, talking about the songs he’s most proud of, all because of what his playing added to the track.
In conversation with Songfacts, he shared how, with several of the band’s finest moments, he was aware that it was his playing that took them from good to great. “Well, I think there are many, actually,” he said. But four stand out to him as his finest work, stating, “Obviously, ‘Walking on the Moon’, ‘Message in a Bottle’, ‘Bring on the Night’ – they’ve all got these parts.”
‘Roxanne’ was another one, as he said, “‘Roxanne’ is so identified by that guitar at the beginning – the first verse before he starts singing. It’s immediately identifiable”.
Not one to be humble about his work and his impact, Summers said, “I’m very happy with what I did in The Police and all the guitar parts and all the rest of it.” In his eyes, those songs stand as his best because they stand as the clearest examples of his essential nature in the band, taking the fine work of the other members and then making it electrifying.
It goes beyond the band, though, and the guitarist isn’t shy in saying, “It’s very significant and had a huge impact on guitar players.”
