The Police song Stewart Copeland wants to delete from history: “The worst casualty”
Not only is Stewart Copeland a fantastic drummer, but he’s an exceptional composer of music with a great intrinsic understanding of how things work in a musical sense – for the most part, that is.
It wasn’t just his work with The Police where he flexed his musical dexterity, but also in the progressive rock outfit Curved Air, where he initially cut his teeth before forming the British-American trio. In addition to this, he’s a prolific solo artist, having recorded soundtracks for many different mediums, including film scores, ballets, and video game soundtracks. If there was any doubt as to the extent of Copeland’s abilities, then all you need to look at is his career path and see how much he’s contributed in a variety of fields to get a grasp of how talented he is.
This is evidently more than just the work of someone who can bash on a set of tubs in time with music, and in a complex manner to boot, but this ought to suggest that he’s got far more than just a talent for the drums up his sleeves. Moving between genres so effortlessly is also not something that everyone is blessed with the ability to do, and the fact that Copeland has jumped from prog to reggae and from new wave to contemporary classical music ought to indicate his versatility.
However, in The Police, he was accompanied by two other musicians who were also geniuses at work, not just on their respective instruments, but also possessing a flair for composition and understanding the complexities of how to piece together the most intricate songs. Guitarist Andy Summers is perhaps one of the most consistently underrated musicians who deserves more praise than he gets, while vocalist and bassist Gordon ‘Sting’ Sumner is a highly-regarded artist in his own right, having flitted between art pop and post-punk throughout a celebrated career.
Copeland might argue that sometimes, their skills were flaunted too much, and on one song in particular, he found himself at a complete loss as to what he was meant to be doing, and therefore provided what he considered to be a substandard performance. While ‘Wrapped Around Your Finger’ is a popular song for The Police, taken from their outstanding fifth and final Synchronicity record in 1983, Copeland claims that it’s one of the worst things the band ever did, and spoke to podcaster and musicologist Rick Beato to explain why.
“In that song particularly, I didn’t know a thing,” Copeland said in an animated tone. “Like, where’s the verse, where’s the chorus? I don’t know, they’re just grooving away there, and then something’s changed. I think I’d do that flam one bar late, and then we’d cut the tape to put it in the right place.”
He continued, disregarding his performance entirely and dismissing it as one of Sting’s worst compositions: “I think that’s the worst casualty of me not knowing what we’re doing here. I’m just playing something, and then there’s this synthesiser, and what I could make out of the lyric, I didn’t get it at the time. That’s my least favourite of all the songs he wrote.”
They might have all had an undeniable connection, but if one part wasn’t working properly, as Copeland insinuates, then it’s all bound to start crumbling to pieces, no matter how strong your understanding of music theory might be.
