The Police song that achieved timelessness: “A great classic”
It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what timelessness is in music, especially when the only way to truly know if a song ticks all the boxes is to wait patiently to see if it still has relevance years after release. According to The Police guitarist Andy Summers, one of their songs managed it.
Commercially, The Police have done better than most rock bands, scoring five UK number-ones and ten top ten hits, as well as a bunch of other successes in other countries and with other numerical measurements of success. In the rock world, this is an impressive feat, and while commercial success isn’t everything, it does show how the band managed to balance artistic vision with formulaic wins.
One of the most obvious examples is, of course, ‘Every Breath You Take’. A song that came at the end of the band’s run, from their final record, Syncronicity, ‘Every Breath You Take’ was the biggest single of the entirety of 1983, maintaining its position at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 for eight consecutive weeks.
Everything about the song – its melody, structure, lyrics – ticked all the boxes for a potential hit, despite coming at a time when the band were essentially fighting tooth and nail to make it to the finish line before everything fell apart. But somehow, they managed to strike musical gold, creating not only a chart-topper but one that was completely timeless.
After all, it’s one thing to create a successful song, but it’s another to ensure it has long-term cultural impact, and the fact that we still place ‘Every Breath You Take’ on heavy rotation speaks for itself. Another was the lead single from Reggatta de Blanc, ‘Message in a Bottle’. Written in keeping with Sting’s reggae-rock infusion, the idea for ‘Message in a Bottle’ was initially sitting around elsewhere for a while before it became its own thing.
According to Sting, however, Summers gave it a “lovely arpeggiated shiver” just before verse three, giving the song its distinctive flavour and building it out into something that could actually be a hit. “The song would be quite raw, and he’d just add these lovely colours,” Sting said. In Summers’ view, the song was no doubt one of the most timeless in their entire discography.
As he recalled to Louder, “It’s my favourite, actually. It’s the one that’s highly recognisable as The Police. I still love it. I think it’s a great classic, and a very different-sounding pop song. For me, it’s the best of The Police. There are a lot of other great tracks, but I’ve always particularly liked that one.”
High praise considering they have a handful of other hits to be proud of, but it makes sense considering that Summers has also experienced the live reaction from audiences during both solo shows and The Police reunions, with the energy becoming palpable as soon as those first few notes start to kick in.
“Everybody goes nuts,” said Summers, saying that there was a special moment during the reunion when they opened with it, at which point the audience immediately felt the excitement pumping through the atmosphere.
