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| The Police - Every Breath You Take |
The Police - Every Breath You Take Lyrics and Youtube Music VideosAlbum:
Synchronicity Released:
1983 Every Breath You Take and every move you make
Every bond you break, every step you take, I'll be watching you
Every single day and every word you say
Every game you play, every night you stay, I'll be watching you
Oh, can't you see you belong to me
How my poor heart aches with every step you take
Every move you make, every vow you break
Every smile you fake, every claim you stake, I'll be watching you
Since you've gone I've been lost without a trace
I dream at night, I can only see your face
I look around but it's you I can't replace
I feel so cold and I long for your embrace
I keep crying, "Baby, baby, please"
Oh, can't you see you belong to me
How my poor heart aches with every step you take
Every move you make and every vow you break
Every smile you fake, every claim you stake, I'll be watching you
Every move you make, every step you take, I'll be watching you
I'll be watching you
Every breath you take and every move you make
Every bond you break, every step you take (I'll be watching you)
Every single day and every word you say
Every game you play, every night you stay (I'll be watching you)
Every move you make, every vow you break
Every smile you fake, every claim you stake (I'll be watching you)
Every single day and every word you say
Every game you play, every night you stay (I'll be watching you)
Every breath you take and every move you make
Every bond you break, every step you take (I'll be watching you)
Every single day and every word you say
Every game you play, every night you stay (I'll be watching you)
Every move you make, every vow you break
Every smile you fake, every claim you stake (I'll be watching you)
Every single day and every word you say
Every game you play, every night you stay (I'll be watching you)
Writer/s: SUMNER, GORDON
Publisher: Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Lyrics licensed and provided by
LyricFindEvery Breath You Take Song Chart This is one of the most misinterpreted songs ever. It is about an obsessive stalker, but it sounds like a love song. Some people even used it as their wedding song. The Police frontman Sting wrote it after separating from his first wife, Frances Tomelty.
In a 1983 interview with the New Musical Express, Sting explained: "I think it's a nasty little song, really rather evil. It's about jealousy and surveillance and ownership." Regarding the common misinterpretation of the song, he added: "I think the ambiguity is intrinsic in the song however you treat it because the words are so sadistic. On one level, it's a nice long song with the classic relative minor chords, and underneath there's this distasteful character talking about watching every move. I enjoy that ambiguity. I watched Andy Gibb singing it with some girl on TV a couple of weeks ago, very loving, and totally misinterpreting it. (Laughter) I could still hear the words, which aren't about love at all. I pissed myself laughing." This was the biggest hit of 1983. It was US #1 for eight weeks. Sting wrote this at the same desk in Jamaica where Ian Fleming wrote his James Bond novels. Police guitarist Andy Summers made a significant contribution to the arrangement of this song. He explained in a Record Collector interview: "Without that guitar part there's no song. That's what sealed it. My guitar completely made it classic and put the modern edge on it. I actually came up with it in one take, but that's because Sting's demo left a lot of space for me to do what I did. There was no way I was just gonna strum barre chords through a song like that." The middle of the song was finished last. They didn't know what to do with it until Sting sat at a piano and started hitting the same key over and over. That became the basis for the missing section. Sting knew this would be the band's biggest hit when he wrote it, even if he didn't think he was breaking new ground. In Rolling Stone magazine, he said: "'Every Breath You Take' is an archetypal song. If you have a major chord followed by a relative minor, you're not original." (thanks, Bertrand - Paris, France) This won Grammys in 1984 for Song of the Year and Best Pop Performance By Duo Or Group With Vocal. At the first MTV Video Music Awards in 1983, this won for Best Cinematography. Featuring black-and-white layered visuals, it was directed by Lol Creme and Kevin Godley of the duo Godley & Creme, who used a similar look in their 1985 video for "Cry."
According to Andy Summers, an executive at their record company named Jeff Ayeroff showed the band, along with Godley and Creme, a 1944 short film called Jammin' The Blues , which contained elegant black-and-white footage of famous Jazz musicians performing in a smoky club. Andy Summers of The Police stated that their video was just a "watered down version" of this film.
Godley and Creme also borrowed the location and the cinematographer (Daniel Pearl) from the Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers video for "A Woman in Love (It's Not Me)," which has a very similar look. Diddy (known as Puff Daddy at the time), sampled this on "I'll Be Missing You," his 1997 tribute to rapper Notorious B.I.G. Sting didn't know about the sample until after the song was released. He ended up making lots of money from it, claiming he put some of his kids through college with the proceeds. Sting performed "I'll Be Missing You" with P. Diddy at the MTV Video Music Awards, and the two remain friends. Sting performed this on a 2001 episode of Ally McBeal. In the show, he was sued by a couple who broke up after one of his sexually suggestive concerts. Robert Downey Jr., who was on Ally McBeal at the time, recorded a duet of this song with Sting for an album from the show called For Once In My Life. Downey was arrested and sent back to drug rehab soon after it was released. This appears on the soundtrack of the 1999 Julia Roberts movie Runaway Bride. It was also used in the movies Risky Business (1983), Speed 2: Cruise Control (1987), The Replacements (2000), 50 First Dates (2004), Young at Heart (2007), What Just Happened (2008), and Heartbeats (2010). The Police performed this when they were inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003. They were inducted by No Doubt lead singer Gwen Stefani, who showed a picture of her getting an autograph from Sting when she was a chubby 13 year old. It was the last performance of the night and the closest thing to the all-star jam that typically ends the ceremonies. The Police were joined by Stefani, Steven Tyler (who inducted AC/DC), and John Mayer, who had recently won a Grammy for his song "Your Body Is A Wonderland." Sting re-wrote the lyrics when he performed this in 2005 at Live 8, a set of concerts organized by Bob Geldof to increase activism and demand more aid for Africa. Sting included the line, "We'll be watching you" to mean the world would be keeping an eye on the politicians making critical decisions on the fate of Africa. Taking account of Puff Daddy's "I'll Be Missing You," as well, which spent 11 weeks at #1, the combined total of 19 weeks makes this the longest running #1 tune in the Hot 100. The longest run at the top for a single song is Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men's "One Sweet Day," which spent 16 weeks at #1. Sting started off with the refrain "Every breath you take," then worked back. He recalled in Isle of Noises by Daniel Rachel: "Once I'd written and performed it, I realised it was quite dark. My intention might have been to write a romantic song, seductive, enveloping and warm. Then I saw another side of my personality was involved, too, about control and jealousy, and that's its power. It was written at a difficult time." Sting wrote in Lyrics By Sting: "The song has the standard structure of a pop ballad, but there is no harmonic development after the middle eight, no release of emotions or change in the point of view of the protagonist. He is trapped in his circular obsessions. Of course, I wasn't aware of any of this. I thought I was just writing a hit song, and indeed it became one of the songs that defined the '80s, and by accident the perfect sound track for Reagan's Star Wars fantasy of control and seduction.
When I finally became aware of this symmetry, I was forced to write an antidote: 'If You Love Somebody Set Them Free.'" This was featured on several TV shows: the Knight Rider episode "Return to Cadiz" (1983); The Office (US) episode "Phyllis' Wedding" (2007); the Eli Stone episode "Happy Birthday, Nate," (2008); the Parks and Recreation episode "The Stakeout," (2009); the South Park episode "You're Getting Old," (2011); and the Glee episode "Frenemies" (2014). Denmark & Winter's version was used on the TV series Pretty Little Liars in 2014 (episode: "Miss Me x 100") during a love scene between Aria and Ezra. It was a fitting choice, considering that Ezra was outed as a stalker at the end of the previous season.