How Every Breath You Take By The Police Changed Meanings After Its Release

Posted by Almeda Bohannan on Thursday, May 9, 2024

As reported by Far Out Magazine, Sting wrote the lyrics to "Every Breath You Take" after he had just gone through a very public divorce with his first wife and mother of his two children, actress Frances Tomelty (via IMDb). Why so public? According to Honey, Sting had an affair with their next-door neighbor and friend of his wife, Trudie Styler. Yikes. Sting flew to Jamaica to get a break from it all, where he stayed at an estate that belonged to author Ian Fleming of "Bond, James Bond" fame. Late one night during his stay, pop music history would be made.

Sting said he woke up in the middle of the night with a song that didn't yet exist stuck in his head. He sat down at the piano and wrote the song in half an hour. Sting told BBC Radio 2 (via Far Out Magazine), "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."

So maybe he was thinking of stalking someone, planting surveillance equipment in their house, and following their car down dark side streets. It's admirable that a song written in a half hour would someday even cause someone to, say, give their smartphone or home speaker unit the side-eye. Clever Sting!

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