Yes, I know; this is one of those songs that was everywhere then and hasn’t gone away and Sting is a lunkhead. But regardless of that; this song is everything a great pop sing should be; unforgettable, and with a hook that most musicians would cut off a finger for. ’4′ my arse. Whatever I was going to give it I’m now giving it a 10 just to spit at every single threadbare criticism of what is one of the most famous songs of all time. Oh, and Puff Daddy’s mediocre rhyme would have gotten nowhere without using that selfsame irresistible riff, thus the song generated two of the biggest hits of all time. I call the ‘Spandau’ defence; two huge songs from one riff make the song critic-proof. You know that you can throw all the rocks you want; they’ll just bounce off.

There are times when it feels like people criticise things just for being too popular with the masses. This feels like one of those times. I posit a hypothesis; if this song had been the same but done by a different band, 50% of the criticisms here would simply disappear. Is it really the song you dislike, or is ‘Sting’ + ‘Popularity’ that bothers you?

As for people using this for their wedding and not “getting it”; first of all, ‘stalker’ is a term that has been popularised post-internet (like many others). Second, maybe the people that chose it for their wedding can hear what the song is about, but like it anyway? The song is about obsessive love, which is no different to obsessive devotion; whether it is a good or bad thing depends on whether it’s reciprocated. At a wedding people are presumably dedicating themselves to each other for life (in theory) so the sentiment of the song would be an appropriate sentiment of devotion, rather than simply a threat of potential murder.

i missed this gem the first time round but can imagine this EXACTLY. i just bet he was barefoot at the time too.

I like EBYT now much more than I did back in the day when I considered it more than a little trite, something which Sting had knocked out in about five minutes for his own delectation rather than for those simpletons who would worship at his shrine however poor the output. I can recall being more impressed with the version delivered for “Spittin’ Image”, which was far more evocative than the original. I now look more kindly upon it once I have dismissed the “stalker” aspect, which seems to bother some commentators. If Sting was indeed trying to be mysterious, it doesn’t really matter, especially all these years later and especially since Sting has become such a righteous knob in the interim.

Erithian – I remember seeing an interview with Dean Friedman, who mentioned that he was something of a hate figure at college amongst the boys as he began his “career” as a songster. This, Dean opined, had everything to do with his corresponding popularity with the girls on campus and nothing whatsoever to do with his totally punchable face and his femmy, whiny little voice, which made Neil Sadaka sound like Scott Walker. Certainly “Lucky Stars” was a capital offence, especially when Friedman asks the uncredited female singer to “slide over here”, and his other two offerings I can think of – “Ariel” and “Lydia, Lydia” were similarly annoying.

When this first came over the radio, it stopped me cold; I’d never heard anything like that progression of classical bass notes in a pop song. This was undoubtedly because I’d paid next to no attention to musical history in my decade and a half on the planet, but so what – it sounded new to me, and I wanted to hear it again and again. I phoned in a request to the station, as a lot of others must have, because they played it four or five times that afternoon. I remember this being the first time I knew, knew that a song was going to number one. (Which again shows how much I knew; in Australia it peaked at number two.) I bought the “limited edition” picture-sleeve single the very next time I was up in town.

I was too new to popular music to be bothered by contrived or convoluted lyrics (not that I pay them too much mind today), and too naive in love to realise how creepy their theme was. At fifteen, I was three years into an unrequited obsession with the prettiest girl in my grade, who had done nothing to deserve it other than be pretty. She was way out of my league, even though it was a small-town league, and I really should have known better, but at that age the mind doesn’t have much say in such matters. In hindsight, it was probably an unconscious defence mechanism, removing any need to deal with the possibilities offered by other girls at school who might have been interested; I had been the class brain on the margins for too long to notice any signs of interest, or to know how to deal with the complicated romantic manoeuvring that other kids seemed to take in their stride. (Seemed. You always assume you’re the only one.)

After years of keeping the secret between me and my friends, who were doubtless sick of hearing about it, I was starting to test my boundaries in the most painfully tentative manner by letting the girl know that I liked her (where “liked” meant the unthinking infatuation that only a flood of teenage hormones can unleash). She was a good sport, choosing not to turn me into a school-wide laughing stock. No, that was left to me, because I didn’t stop with letting her know.

Everyone in school listened to the AM station where I first heard “Every Breath You Take”, and every night kids from all over the south phoned in their requests to Bill the DJ. Getting on air was a rare coup in the days before mobiles and speed dial: it meant monopolizing the family phone (fortunately in an empty hallway in our house) and dialling the numbers repeatedly on a rotary dial – bad luck if it had a lot of 9′s and 0′s. Nineteen times out of twenty you’d get the engaged signal, and I gave up for the night more than once; but eventually I got through.

A friend and I had a plan for when we did. We were our grade’s biggest Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy fans, and were going to speak to Bill in character: him as Marvin, me as Zaphod. (The irony being that I was definitely a Marvin at that age, and never a Zaphod.) The challenge was that the station had a ban on silly nicknames for their phone-ins; my friend could plausibly claim that Marvin was his actual name, but Zaphod was going to be tricky.

Bill must not have been Hobart’s biggest Hitchhiker’s fan, or else he took pity on me, because when I swore to him off-air that Zaphod really was what everyone called me, he put me on.

“And on the line we’ve got… Zaphod. How’s it going, Zaphod?”

“Heyyyyyyy, BILL baby!”

Of course, my best Zaphod voice was still instantly recognisable to everyone in my grade, especially when it slipped once or twice during my improvised Hitchhiker’s-themed banter, as were the names of all my friends, duly name-checked in the traditional roll-call before my request played; and as was the name of the girl I dedicated it to.

I pray that the song I requested wasn’t this one. But it could well have been. If not on that first call, then on one of the subsequent calls where I kept up the shtick and kept the same dedication. (My friend got through as Marvin, too, and for a while we were a regular feature of the phone-in. The no-nicknames policy pretty much collapsed after that, which can only have been a good thing.) The themes of “Every Breath You Take”, in all their unhealthy glory, hold too much obvious appeal to timid teenagers in the throes of unrequited love. Which is a lot of teenagers.

Although I had guaranteed myself instant notoriety in the classroom, the fall-out actually wasn’t as embarrassing as I’d feared; I still had No Chance, but my peers weren’t going to think less of me for fancying someone half of them did as well. What the girl concerned made of it, I can only speculate, and cringe over.

Given that the song was such a personal milestone (millstone?), it’s odd that I never bought Synchronicity; I guess I was burning through too much cash with my new record-buying habit, and there was a 3-in-1 stereo to save for as well. I resisted the urge even when Fopp was knocking it out recently for three quid, because I couldn’t see it being what I’d once imagined it must be (a Masterpiece! Five Stars! Breathtaking!); not after a quarter-century more of exposure to comfy ol’ Sting. (Not a fan, really, but a copy of The Soul Cages moulders away on my CD shelves.) Some things are better left in isolation, and “Every Breath You Take” feels like one of them. Funny, that.

Back in the day I would have given this an 8 without hesitation, but age has wearied it to a six or seven; even if the memories it invokes are embarrassing, they’re intense, and that’s got to count for something. As for those lyrics and the message they send to hapless dedicatees, at least it wasn’t the b-side, “Murder by Numbers”.

Hey, any Resurrection Watch worth its salt has to mention the “aaaah”/”not ah” Spitting Image re-recording, where The Very Sting Himself deigned to sing for the programme but it was all like Every Bomb You Make, like gosh.

One other Resurrection which the Bunny do allow is, then, the outro of Sting’s Love Is The Seventh Wave (“Every cake you bake, every leg you break”) – haha look I can even very self-consciously laugh at myself!!

Did anyone else see the programme about the recording of Dream Of The Blue Turtles, incl footage of Sting “winning” a game of inter-rehearsal chess. “Check mate”. Huh.

Silly bugger pretends to play a double bass in the video too!

I wonder if Sting and Berlusconi ever swap notes (oops – is this common knowledge?). Sorry to Stingbash, but this may be our last opportunity.

Dean “Lucky Stars” Friedman described once on Radio 1 how he was driving along with the radio on when he heard Paul Evans’ “Hello This Is Joanie” for the first time, and paid less and less attention to the road as the song went on. When it came to the last verse and the news that Joanie’s car had crashed, Dean Friedman’s very nearly did too.

This has been massively overstated, I reckons.

Certainly, no-one does now, right? Not when there’s Angels, Celine Dijonmustard, or Spandau Ballet’s True to misuse…

Also according to Wikipedia, he’s trousering $2000 a day in royalties for this song alone.

“Oh can’t you see
You belong to me?
My poor heart aches
With every step you take”

Even Perry Como would have snorted and summoned Mitch Miller to tender his resignation. The idea that Sting was imbuing this misanthropic dirge with a political subtext is plain daft. (The weakest entries in the Heart Of Rock & Soul are the eighties ones – Marsh should have had a cut-off point in the mid 70s to be true to himself). Sting is no great thinker. He’s just a bad loser in love is all.

I’ve gone on record as saying that the Police are the worst-ever biggest band in the world, and this song among their prime offenses….

But it also never fails the sing-along-with-it test, whether it’s in the car, at a game, karaoke, or simply at a party. “Every Breath You Take” is simply loads of fun to sing (at least for me; I guess I have a similar range to Sting), especially the “I keep crying baby baby please” bit. Half the fun is making fun of Sting’s, uh, stylized vocalizing.

I already voted this a five, but I may have just talked myself into a higher mark. *Listens to the song again* No, I was right. The little shrivel of resignation I feel when the drum hits and that monotonous guitar figure starts doesn’t lie.