(Credits: Far Out / Last FM)
Sat 4 April 2026 12:55, UK
A songwriter can slave away in the studio for months, losing sleep over every note and lyric, for the final result to be rejected by their fans, even if they believe it’s the peak of their artistry.
Similarly, a song that an artist carelessly creates without too much consideration can end up becoming their signature release, one they are demanded to perform at every concert for the rest of their life and can’t escape.
If there were a formula for creating a hit record, it would have already been bottled up and sold for millions. Rarely does this come when an artist expects it, as Sting can attest to with ‘Every Breath You Take’, which is far from his proudest artistic moment.
They were already an unstoppable musical force before the hit record, which appeared on their final album, Synchronicity, which has shifted more than eight million units in the United States alone. The record took them to new heights, largely due to the success of ‘Every Breath You Take’.
In addition to selling millions of copies, it won a Grammy for ‘Song of the Year’ and has been streamed almost three-and-a-half billion times on Spotify alone, showing that people still can’t get enough. If they wanted to, Sting and The Police could have lived like kings off the royalties from this release alone.
While he’s extremely thankful for the impact that ‘Every Breath You Take’ has had on his career and finances, Sting doesn’t proclaim that it’s a perfect pop song. In fact, far from it.
In the BBC Two documentary Secrets of the Pop Song, the singer frankly admitted: “I think it’s my most successful song, and probably better known than any others, and yet, it’s not in the least bit original. It has a standard chord sequence, which is probably nicked off ‘Stand By Me’.”
He then slammed his own lyrics, adding, “It’s not original. The lyrics, you could get them from a rhyming dictionary. You know, ‘make’, ‘take’, ‘fake’, ‘wake’ and yet, it has something about it that people respond to.”
Sting also acknowledged the darker meaning that can be construed from the quite frankly stalkerish lyrics, adding, “It seems at first like a very romantic, kind of seductive song, which is what I initially intended it to be, but then when you listen to it, you realise there’s a compulsion behind it, to the point of obsession where it becomes quite sinister.”
However, he did believe there was a lesson to be learned in the simplicity of ‘Every Breath You Take’, sharing, “Sometimes, I’ll spend months on a song, making it very technical musically, technical lyrically, and I don’t get anywhere. Sometimes, the simplest songs are the best. Being simple is not easy, though.”
Taking Sting’s comments at face value, he’s right to stress the importance of simplicity when it comes to songwriting and how it can be the best technique. However, it’s also worth considering that perhaps the reason he spoke out against the lyrics and played down his efforts is because they are nothing to be proud of.
The chorus of “Every breath you take, and every move you make, every bond you break, every step you take, I’ll be watching you,” just wouldn’t be allowed to go out as a single by a major label act like The Police in 2026.
Rather than defend the lyrics, Sting instead opted to disown them. Even as far back as 1993, he said that he woke up in the middle of the night with the lyric in his head and thrashed out the rest in a sleepy haze within 30 minutes, before admitting, “I didn’t realise at the time how sinister it is.”
While there’s no denying the lyrics can be interpreted as menacing, Sting has put distance between himself and the creation, which is a wise thing to do upon being accused of writing an almanack for stalkers.
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