Every Breath You Take was the keystone single release from 1983’s Synchronicity, one of those monster hit records classifiable as a “zeitgeist album”, as I’ve been referring to them. Buoyed by an unusually artful and ominous video filmed in stark monochrome – directed by UK pop duo Godley and Creme, lately of the group 10CC – it became a massive global chart-topper, holding down the number one slot on the Billboard Hot 100 for eight straight weeks, and rising to the top just about everywhere else, including Canada and the UK. In 2019, BMI, the world’s premier music licensing organization, asserted that Every Breath You Take was the most-played song in radio history, a title which it may still hold, (though in this chaotic age of streaming it’s no longer so clear how these things are measured). It’s one of those songs, like Hey Jude, that became so big, and so familiar, that it’s possible now to forget how thrilling it was to hear it for the first time, or appreciate how great a pop music composition it really is.
I sometimes describe songs as feeling so right, so intuitively pleasing, that by the time you’re only about a minute into your first listen they already seem like old friends. Today’s selection is certainly one of those, and a big part of that is the use of the classic pop music chord progression of I-vi-IV-V (that is, a sequence of four chords built on the first, sixth, fourth and fifth leading notes of a given key), the backbone of a number of songs that will undoubtedly be familiar to the reader. This sequence is not unlike the I-V-vi-IV sequence – which might be the most popular set of chords in all of pop – as discussed in a prior Song of the Day posting about U2’s With or Without You:
As I noted then, these chords have a mysterious sort of magic to them:
For some reason surpassing understanding, the human mind seems wired to respond immediately to those chords, as if they mimic some sound in nature, invariably heralding good things, that our auditory circuits have been naturally selected to favour. It’s the backbone of all sorts of songs, from rockers like the Rolling Stones’ Beast of Burden and Green Day’s When I Come Around to sublime ballads like Neil Finn’s Fall at Your Feet, and McCartney’s Let it Be.
Every Breath You Take uses the same chords, just in a different sequence, but the apparently universal pleasing effect is quite similar. Those of a musicological bent explain it this way:
The 1-6-4-5 chord progression (I-vi-IV-V) is one of the most iconic and frequently used chord progressions in Western popular music. Its timeless appeal comes from its ability to evoke a wide range of emotions, from upbeat and joyful to wistful and melancholic. This progression has formed the backbone of many beloved songs in rock, pop, country, and other genres. It offers songwriters a simple but emotionally powerful tool for creating memorable music…This progression’s magic lies in its blend of major and minor chords. The tonic (I) provides a sense of home or stability, the vi (minor) introduces emotional depth, the IV chord builds tension and complexity, and the V chord creates a sense of expectation that resolves back to the tonic.
https://www.bennysutton.com/chords/the-1-6-4-5-chord-progression
I’d add that these chords, whatever their sequence, somehow lend themselves to an apparently infinite set of tempos, harmonies, and overlaid melodies, to the point that the lay listener, i.e. thee and me, would hardly suspect that the same basic progression is at the heart of beloved songs which to us seem to have nothing in common; I doubt many would think there’s any great similarity between, say, the Beatles classic Let it Be and Green Day’s When I Come Around, or Journey’s Don’t Stop Believing and Ah-Ha’s Take on Me. But there is. Once you’re in on the secret, you’ll be hearing the classic chords everywhere, across almost every genre. Here’s the I-V-vi-IV sequence, played on piano:
And here’s the sequence for Every Breath You Take, played on guitar:
I suppose technically, the verses actually proceed I-V-vi-IV-IV, though note how in the outtro they switch to G-eminor-C-G, or, expressed in Roman numerals, I-vi-IV-I. Among the songs using the same sequence as the verses in today’s selection are Ben E. King’s Stand By Me, the Righteous Brothers’ Unchained Melody, the Ronettes’ Be My Baby, Cyndi Lauper’s Time After Time, Bob Marley’s No Woman No Cry, and numerous others. Curiously, by my research, many sources claim that songs generally considered to be using the sequence upon which Let it Be et al. are constructed, I-V-vi-IV, actually aren’t, but are instead built around I-vi-IV-V, just like Every Breath You Take; my own ears don’t agree, but it seems that if the melody fits one chord progression, it’ll often fit the other just as well.
It’s amazing, isn’t it, how there are certain chord combinations that land in just about everybody’s musical sweet spot, and how the best songwriters know how to deploy them to create an intended mood.
In this case, composer and Police front man Sting was pulling a bit of a fast one, since, as he well knew, we normally associate his chosen chord sequence with a romantic, yearning, loving sort of feeling, and it’s perhaps for that reason that many listeners hear Every Breath You Take as a classic love song (apparently, people have even played it as the first dance at their weddings!). Of course it’s anything but. Even the most casual attention to the lyrics reveals the protagonist to be an obsessive and menacing stalker, and obviously a dangerous character, perhaps a former lover unwilling to let go and drifting into something close to psychosis, or maybe just a head case who never met the poor girl, but believes she’s in love with him anyway. In the words of Sting:
I think it’s a nasty little song, really rather evil. It’s about jealousy and surveillance and ownership…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 love song with the classic relative minor chords, but 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.
Maybe some folks think that lines like this are about deep and loving admiration:
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, and every vow you break, I’ll be watching you
Every smile you fake, every claim you stake, I’ll be watching you
Nope! Not exactly One Enchanted Evening, is it? Godley and Creme, staging the video, understood the thing perfectly. The black and white cinematography looks like something out of The Third Man, it’s pure film noir, and Sting’s face is sullen and menacing throughout. A nice touch is the presence in the background of a nebulous, shadowy figure perched above the band on a swing stage, who’s only pretending to wash the windows, staring, surveilling from up above, always there.
Adding to the song’s inherent beauty is the deft, harmonious guitar work of Andy Summers, who realized this was a piece that required a lot more than the mere strumming of chords, and Sting’s own McCartney-esque bass line, the whole augmented by a lovely and remarkably understated string arrangement. It’s all so pretty that it’s easy to understand how people get confused, especially if they miss the ominous subtext conveyed by the typically excellent drumming of Stewart Copland, whose rhythm has a whip-like, unsympathetic sort of quality, powerful, sharp, and not in the least evocative of tender feelings. Also of special note is an unusually effective middle eight, in which Sting, sounding suitably anguished and frustrated, brings the bridge to resolution with a long, pleading pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease, followed by a repeating series of descending piano lines that land us right back at the tonic G. It really is masterful.
Every Breath You Take, its essential ugliness wrapped in a beautiful cloak, might just be the most unsettling song ever to become the biggest hit of the year. It won a passel of gongs, including the Grammys for Song of the Year and Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group, the Rolling Stone Song of the Year, and the Ivor Novello Award for Best Song Musically and Lyrically, awarded by the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors. Over forty years on, its popularity remains undiminished. It was voted The Nation’s Favourite 1980s Number One in a UK-wide poll conducted in 2015, and to this day racks up incredible numbers on the music and video streaming sites, to the tune of about two million streams a day on Spotify, for a total of over 2.6 billion so far, and over a billion views thus far on YouTube.
I wonder, how many of this legion of listeners still hear this disturbing portrait of a dangerously obsessive mind as a sweetly romantic love ballad?
the needlefish 