"Every Breath You Take"
Single by the Police
from the album Synchronicity
B-side"Murder by Numbers"
Released20 May 1983[1]
RecordedDecember 1982 – February 1983[2]
Genre
Length3:56 (single version)
4:13 (album version)
LabelA&M (AM 117)
Songwriter(s)Sting
Producer(s)
The Police singles chronology
"Secret Journey"
(1982) 		"Every Breath You Take"
(1983) 		"Wrapped Around Your Finger"
(1983)
Audio sample
Music video
"Every Breath You Take" on YouTube

"Every Breath You Take" is a song by British rock band the Police from their album Synchronicity (1983). Written by Sting, the single was the biggest US and Canadian hit of 1983, topping the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart for eight weeks (the band's only No. 1 hit on that chart), and the Canadian RPM chart for four weeks. Their fifth UK No. 1, it topped the UK Singles Chart for four weeks. The song also reached the top 10 in numerous other countries.

At the 26th Annual Grammy Awards, the song was nominated for three Grammy Awards, including Song of the Year, Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals, and Record of the Year, winning in the first two categories. For the song, Sting received the 1983 Ivor Novello Award for Best Song Musically and Lyrically from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors.[5]

"Every Breath You Take" is the Police's and Sting's signature song, and in 2010 was estimated to generate between a quarter and a third of Sting's music publishing income.[6] In May 2019, it was recognised by BMI as being the most played song in radio history.[7][8] With nearly 15 million radio plays, Sting received a BMI Award at a ceremony held at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills to mark it being the Most Performed Song in BMI's catalogue, a distinction previously held since 1999 by Spector, Mann and Weil's "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'". BMI President and CEO Mike O'Neill stated: "For the first time in 22 years, BMI has a new top song in our repertoire with Sting's timeless hit 'Every Breath You Take,' a remarkable achievement that solidifies its place in songwriting history."[7]

In the 1983 Rolling Stone critics' and readers' poll, it was voted "Song of the Year". In the US, it was the best-selling single of 1983 and fifth-best-selling single of the decade. Billboard ranked it as the No. 1 song for 1983.[9] The song ranked No. 84 on the Rolling Stone list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time and is included in The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.[10] It also ranked number 25 on Billboard's Hot 100 All-Time Top Songs.[11] In 2008, Q magazine named it among the top 10 British Songs of the 1980s.[12] In 2015, the song was voted by the British public as The Nation's Favourite 1980s number one in a UK-wide poll for ITV.[13]

Origins and songwriting

To escape the public eye, Sting retreated to the Caribbean. He started writing the song at Ian Fleming's writing desk on the Goldeneye estate in Oracabessa, Jamaica.[14] The lyrics are the words of a possessive lover who is watching "every breath you take; every move you make". Sting recalled:

I woke up in the middle of the night with that line in my head, sat down at the piano and had written it in half an hour. The tune itself is generic, an aggregate of hundreds of others, but the words are interesting. It sounds like a comforting love song. I didn't realise at the time how sinister it is. I think I was thinking of Big Brother, surveillance and control.[15]

When asked why he appears angry in the music video, Sting told BBC Radio 2, "I think the song is very, very sinister and ugly and people have actually misinterpreted it as being a gentle little love song, when it's quite the opposite. Hence so."[16] Gary T. Marx, sociologist and scholar of surveillance studies, wrote in 1988 that, while the song was "a love rather than a protest song", it "nicely captures elements of the new surveillance". He compared the lines to various new technologies of surveillance, including linking "every breath you take" to breath analyzers, "every step you take" to ankle monitors, and "every vow you break" to voice stress analysis.[17]

According to the Back to Mono box-set book, "Every Breath You Take" is influenced by a Gene Pitney song titled "Every Breath I Take". Led Zeppelin's song, "D'yer Mak'er" (1973), also contains the words "every breath I take; every move I make".

Recording

The demo of the song was recorded in an eight-track suite in North London's Utopia studios and featured Sting singing over a Hammond organ.[2] A few months later, he presented the song to the other band members when they reconvened at George Martin's AIR Studios in Montserrat to work on the Synchronicity album. The band initially tried the song in a variety of different styles and arrangements, such as reggae.[18][19]

While recording, guitarist Andy Summers came up with a guitar part inspired by Béla Bartók that would later become a trademark lick, and played it straight through in one take. He was asked to put guitar onto a simple backing track of bass, drums, and a single vocal, with Sting offering no directive beyond "make it your own".[20] Summers remembered:

This was a difficult one to get, because Sting wrote a very good song, but there was no guitar on it. He had this Hammond organ thing that sounded like Billy Preston. It certainly didn't sound like the Police, with that big, rolling synthesizer part. We spent about six weeks recording just the snare drums and the bass. It was a simple, classic chord sequence, but we couldn't agree how to do it. I'd been making an album with Robert Fripp, and I was kind of experimenting with playing Bartok violin duets and had worked up a new riff. When Sting said 'go and make it your own', I went and stuck that lick on it, and immediately we knew we had something special.[21]

The recording process was fraught with difficulties as personal tensions between the band members, particularly Sting and drummer Stewart Copeland, came to the fore.[2] Producer Hugh Padgham claimed that by the time of the recording sessions, Sting and Copeland "hated each other", with verbal and physical fights in the studio common.[2] The tensions almost led to the recording sessions being cancelled until a meeting involving the band and the group's manager, Miles Copeland (Stewart's brother), resulted in an agreement to continue.[2]

The drum track was largely created through separate overdubs of each percussive instrument, with the kick drum coming from the box for the Oberheim DMX drum machine while the main backbeat was created by simultaneously playing a snare and a Tama gong drum.[2] To give the song more liveliness, Padgham asked Copeland to record his drum part in the studio's dining room in order to achieve some "special sound effects". The room, however, was so hot that Copeland's drum sticks had to be taped to his hands to avoid slippage.[2]

A piano accompaniment consisting of individual notes was added to complete the song's bridge.[2] Padgham remembers that the band and he had "agonized over that part for a long time".[22] with Sting "fiddling around on the piano, banging away on the same note". Padgham recalled a one-note guitar solo and its hypnotic effect in previous work with XTC, and suggested using a similar single-note piano accompaniment - concluding that the one-note line was "kind of his idea in the end".[22][2] However, in a 1984 interview, Padgham remembered Sting coming into the studio with a couple of one-note piano lines for the song - instead implying that they were Sting's ideas and not his.[18]

Cash Box described the song as "a subtly crafted minor key ballad" and commented on the effect of the "surprising, smokey smooth feel [of the vocal] above the band's patently insistent rhythmic drive."[23]

Music video

The song had a music video (directed by duo Godley & Creme) loosely based on Gjon Mili's 1944 short film Jammin' the Blues. Shot in black-and-white with a navy blue tint, the video depicts the band, accompanied by a pianist and string section, performing the song in a darkened ballroom as a man washes the floor-to-ceiling window behind them. Sting performs his part on upright bass rather than bass guitar.

The video was praised for its cinematography; MTV (1999), Rolling Stone (1993), and VH1 (2001) named it one of the best music videos ever, placing it 16th, 61st, & 33rd in their respective top 100 lists. Daniel Pearl won the first MTV cinematography award for his work on the video.[24] Released in the early days of MTV, "Every Breath You Take" was one of the earliest videos to enter heavy rotation, which significantly contributed to the song's popularity. Pop star Richard Marx remembers that "the first video I watched over and over was 'Every Breath You Take'. It was like seeing a Bergman film. Directors usually spelled out every word of the lyrics in a video, but this was the first video I knew that didn't do that. It was abstract." According to A&M co-founder Jeff Ayeroff, "[The video for] 'Every Breath You Take' probably cost $75,000 to $100,000, and we sold over 5 million albums. With a good video, the return on your investment was phenomenal."[25]

On October 5, 2022, Billboard officially released a statement confirming that the music video for "Every Breath You Take" surpassed one billion views on YouTube.[26]

Commercial performance

"Every Breath You Take" was released as a single in 1983, with "Murder by Numbers", a composition by Summers and Sting, on the B-side. It reached No. 1 in the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Israel, Ireland, and South Africa. In Canada, it spent four weeks at No. 1 and an additional six weeks at No. 2. It also reached No. 2 in Spain, Sweden, Norway and Australia, while reaching the Top 10 in most other Western, Northern and Southern European countries.

In the 1983 Rolling Stone critics and readers poll, it was voted "Song of the Year". In the US, it was the best-selling single of 1983 and fifth-best-selling single of the decade. Billboard ranked it as the No. 1 song for 1983.[9]

The single became the biggest US and Canadian hit of 1983, topping the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart for eight weeks (the band's only No. 1 hit on that chart). It also topped the Billboard Top Tracks chart for nine weeks.

At the 26th Annual Grammy Awards, the song was nominated for three Grammy Awards, including Song of the Year, Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals, and Record of the Year, winning in the first two categories. Sting received the 1983 Ivor Novello award for Best Song Musically and Lyrically from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors.[5]

Legacy

Two cover versions charted on the Billboard Hot Country Singles chart in 1983: Rich Landers at number 68 and Mason Dixon at number 69.[27]

In 1999, "Every Breath You Take" was listed as one of the Top 100 Songs of the Century by BMI.[28][29] In May 2019, BMI updated the list and “Every Breath You Take” was recognized as the Most Performed Song in BMI’s catalogue, a distinction previously held by "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'".[7] In 2003, VH1 ranked the song the No. 2 greatest breakup song. As of 2003, Sting was making an average of $2000 per day in royalties for the song.[30]

In October 2007, Sting was awarded a Million-Air certificate for nine million airplays of "Every Breath You Take" at the BMI Awards show in London.[31]

"Every Breath You Take" is the Police's and Sting's signature song, and in 2010 was estimated to generate between a quarter and a third of Sting's music publishing income.[6] In May 2019, it was recognized by BMI as being the most played song in radio history.[7][8] With nearly 15 million radio plays, Sting received a BMI Award at a ceremony held at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills to mark it being the Most Performed Song in BMI's catalogue, a distinction previously held since 1999 by "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'". BMI President and CEO Mike O'Neill stated: "For the first time in 22 years, BMI has a new top song in our repertoire with Sting's timeless hit 'Every Breath You Take,' a remarkable achievement that solidifies its place in songwriting history."[7]

The song ranked No. 84 on the Rolling Stone list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time and is included in The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.[10] It also ranked number 25 on Billboard's Hot 100 All-Time Top Songs.[11] In 2008, Q magazine named it among the top 10 British Songs of the 1980s.[12] In 2015, the song was voted by the British public as the nation's favourite 1980s number one in a UK-wide poll for ITV.[13]

The song is sampled in Puff Daddy's 1997 hit "I'll Be Missing You," which topped the Billboard Hot 100 for 11 weeks and won a Grammy Award for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group; Sting ultimately participated in a performance of "I'll Be Missing You" at the 1997 MTV Video Music Awards.[32]

According to Copeland in 2000:

In my humble opinion, this is Sting's best song with the worst arrangement. I think Sting could have had any other group do this song and it would have been better than our version – except for Andy's brilliant guitar part. Basically, there's an utter lack of groove. It's a totally wasted opportunity for our band. Even though we made gazillions off of it, and it's the biggest hit we ever had, when I listen to this recording, I think 'God, what a bunch of assholes we were!'[21]

In the same interview, Copeland said Summers should get songwriting credit for "Every Breath You Take." In October 2023, Summers revealed that despite contributing the guitar riff that "has become a kind of immortal guitar part that all guitar players have to learn,” he is still pursuing a "contentious" battle with Sting over "Every Breath You Take" songwriting credits. He said that the song was originally "going in the trash until I played on it.” He also hinted at a legal battle over the song's songwriting credits. “Watch the press; let's see what happens in the next year. That's all I can tell you.”[33][34]

Accolades

It is one of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.[35] On the 50th anniversary of the Billboard Hot 100 Chart, the song was ranked No. 25 on Billboard's "The All-Time Top 100 Songs" chart.[36]

Track listing

7" single: A&M / AM 117

  1. "Every Breath You Take" – 3:56
  2. "Murder by Numbers" – 4:31

Two-disc 7" single: A&M / AM 117 Disc one

  1. "Every Breath You Take" – 4:13
  2. "Murder by Numbers" – 4:31

Disc two

  1. "Truth Hits Everybody" (Remix) – 3:34
  2. "Man in a Suitcase" (Live) – 2:18

Personnel

Credits from Richard Buskin and co-producer/engineer Hugh Padgham.[37]

Charts

Certifications and sales

Certifications and sales for "Every Breath You Take"
Region Certification Certified units/sales
Canada — 150,000[87]
Denmark (IFPI Danmark)[88] 2× Platinum 180,000‡
Germany (BVMI)[89] Platinum 500,000‡
Italy (FIMI)[90] 3× Platinum 300,000‡
Portugal (AFP)[91] 4× Platinum 160,000‡
Spain (PROMUSICAE)[92] 4× Platinum 240,000‡
United Kingdom (BPI)[93] 2× Platinum 1,200,000‡
United States (RIAA)[94] Gold 1,000,000^

^ Shipments figures based on certification alone.
‡ Sales+streaming figures based on certification alone.

See also

Notes

References

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External links

The Police
Awards for "Every Breath You Take"
Billboard Year-End number one singles (1980–1999)
Authority control databases
Categories