Learn these songs by The Police with Fret Zealot
The Police emerged into the British new wave scene in the late 1970s and early 1980s, bringing their reggae-infused rock sound to radios everywhere. The trio formed in 1977 in London, with Sting (bass, lead vocals), Andy Summers (guitar) and Stewart Copeland (drums, percussion). The band found huge commercial success, being billed by Rolling Stone as “the first British New Wave act to break through in America on a grand scale, and possibly the biggest band in the world” in 1983.
Concert de “The Police” au Madison Square Garden – New York le 1er Aout 2007
The group disbanded in 1986, but occasionally got back together for single performances before going on a world tour in 2007. Despite having a relatively short career, The Police have won six Grammy Awards, two Brit Awards, and an MTV Video Music Award.
You can learn these songs by The Police and Sting with Fret Zealot.
The Police’s signature song, “Every Breath You Take” was recognized in May 2019 as the most played song in radio history by BMI. Sting said that he wrote the song while thinking of “Big Brother” and surveillance while writing the song. “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,” he told BBC 2 Radio.
Andy Summers said that the “Message in a Bottle” guitar riff was originally supposed to be for another song, but during the band’s first American tour, Sting kept fiddling around with it until it became the riff as we know it today. Sting sings “sending out an S.O.S.” 31 times throughout the course of the song.
Sting wrote “Roxanne” while the band was staying in Paris, France – and the song’s name comes from a character in the play Cyrano de Bergerac. An old poster or the play was featured in the foyer of the hotel. While recording the song, Sting sat on a piano keyboard by accident, causing the dissonant chord and laugh you can hear at the start of the track. Sting is even credited for this “contribution” in the liner notes, where he’s listed as providing “butt piano”.
On his second studio album, Sting wrote “Englishman in New York” about Quentin Crisp, a British raconteur and gay icon, who moved from London to Manhattan, where Sting met him.
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