By: Ben Beaumont-Thomas / The Guardian (title: 'A nasty little song, really rather evil': how Every Breath You Take tore Sting and the Police apart)
Translation: Telegrafi.com
This week's High Court hearings between Sting and former members of The Police, Stewart Copeland and Andy Summers, are the latest chapter in the life of a song whose negative energy seems to have spilled over into real life.
Every Breath You Take is the subject of a lawsuit filed by Copeland and Summers against Sting, alleging that he owes them royalties related to their contributions to the wildly popular song — specifically from streaming revenue, estimated at around $2 million [1.72 million euros] in total. Sting’s legal team has objected, saying that previous agreements between him and the band members for their royalties from the song do not include streaming revenue — and pre-trial documents said the pair were paid “more than they should have been.” On the first day of the hearing, it was revealed that since the lawsuit was filed, Sting has paid them $870,000 [747,000 euros] to settle what his lawyer called “certain payments.” But there is still plenty of potential future revenue at stake.
The dispute is not about some dusty old hit, with band members simply seeking to redistribute old profits - any interpretation of the agreements between band members will have major and ongoing financial impact. As the hearings begin, Every Breath You Take is in the top 10 of the most streamed songs daily worldwide on Spotify, garnering around 3.5 million plays on that platform each day: more than some of the most popular songs of recent times, such as Birds of a Feather by Billie Eilish and Die With a Smile by Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars. In Spotify, listening increased by 89 percent in 2024 and continued with another 36 percent increase last year, with particular popularity in the US, Mexico, Brazil, Germany and the UK, which are the song's largest markets.
This makes Every Breath You Take an incredibly powerful engine for royalties (i.e. copyrights), which are currently going mainly to Sting (he is the only registered author, although Copeland and Summers receive 15 percent through an agreement dating back to 1977). Every Breath You Take has benefited from being included in the soundtrack of Stranger Things, appearing in seasons two and four, and like many other songs - as fans revisit the entire sci-fi saga - it has received a boost on air, but it has also been very present outside of the series, as in TikTok.
It was number one in the UK and US charts when it was first released in 1983. And, the 1997 song of the year, I'll Be Missing You, a posthumous tribute to the Notorious BIG - by Puff Daddy and Faith Evans who incorporated much of that song - was another global hit. But the enduring success of Every Breath You Take hides the various forms of conflict at its heart.
Sting has said he aimed to write a "romantic, somewhat seductive" song and has admitted that it "isn't original at all; it has a standard chord sequence that was probably stolen from Stand By Me" by Ben E King. (He has also attributed the inspiration to the song Slip Slidin' Away by Paul Simon - interesting details for a court hearing focused on authorship). It is so classic that researchers at Aarhus University in Denmark named it the most appealing song in terms of matching the rhythms of everyday life: “A very pleasant song, perhaps even a little ordinary,” the study’s lead researcher said in 2021.
But, Every Breath You Take takes its power from the devilish trick it causes in listeners. Sting described it as a light ballad with a soothing, simple, and classic structure, filled with promises of eternal love and support. It is almost possible to understand it word for word, and Faith Evans did not need to change anything to turn it into a pure devotional song for her dead husband. It is performed, without irony, at weddings. But Sting added to it what he called “compulsion, to the point of obsession, where it becomes somewhat of a vice” - describing it as a sincere declaration of love in the words of a pursuer who cannot let go.
There's something almost devilish about its manipulation, and Sting - who called it "a really, really devilish song" - even felt the need to undo the curse with the 1985 song that launched his solo career, If You Love Someone Set Them Free"I had to write the antidote," he said, "after I poisoned people with this terrible thing."
Every Breath You Take it was also a nightmare to make, like the entire hugely popular album Synchronicity in which she became involved. “They were tired of each other,” said the album’s producer, Hugh Padgham. “Stingu and Stewart hated each other, and although Andy didn’t show much anger, he could get sullen – and there were both verbal and physical clashes in the studio.” It was Every Breath You Take which almost brought them to their breaking point, with Copeland feeling constrained by the song's drum rhythm pattern. Padgham recalled: "Stewart would say, 'I want to put my drum part on it' and Sting would say, 'I don't want you to put your drum part on it! I want you to put what I want!'... and it would go on and on. It was really hard... I remember quite clearly that we worked non-stop for 10 days... and we had nothing on tape that was audible."
If Copeland felt limited by Sting's vision for the song, Summers has claimed he had a deeper influence on it: "It was worthless until I played it," he said in 2016. Responding to a demo version performed by Sting over organ chords, Summers created the guitar figure as a way "to make those other bastards happy. That song was for dumping. Sting and Stewart couldn't agree on how the bass and drums were going to go. We were in the middle of Synchronicity "and Sting was like, 'Come on, get in there and do your thing.' And I did it with the first one. Everyone stood up and applauded."
Physical altercations continued on the album's tour, with Copeland breaking one of Sting's ribs. Copeland later described the incident as "physical play," but the rifts ran deep. Sting wanted to explore music with others, and The Police disbanded at the height of their success, earning a reputation as one of the most divisive bands in rock history.
Another inside joke of the group lies in Every Breath You TakeAs Copeland said in 2018: “One of our favorite jokes is when Puff Daddy used Every Breath You Take IN I'll Be Missing "You, he used the image of Andy's guitar, not the melody or the lyrics. Andy and I say, 'Come on Sting, pay Andy his royalties.' And Sting says, 'Okay Andy, here they are...'! Without reaching for his wallet."
But that joke has now taken on a very real form, and as Every Breath You Take is as famous as it once was, even the relationships in The Police may be as bad as they were when it was filmed. /Telegraph/
