Though the Police had a number of massive hits during their brief time together, none rival Every Breath You Take. A smoldering ballad driven by an unforgettable, minimalist add9 electric guitar riff from Andy Summers, the song topped the charts for an astounding eight weeks in the summer of 1983.
Despite the prominence of Summers’ riff, though, only the Police’s superstar frontman and bass guitar player, Sting, received a songwriting credit for the song.
40 years later, that omission remains a sore subject for Summers, as evidenced during the guitarist’s recent appearance on The Jeremy White Show. Asked by White about how the Police’s biggest hit came about, Summers reflected on the song’s surprising origin story, and how his contributions – in his view – ultimately shaped the song in its final form.
“Every Breath You Take was going in the trash until I played on it,” Summers tells White, who goes on to ask why – given his contribution – the guitarist never received songwriting credit on the song.
“It’s a very contentious [topic] – it’s very much alive at the moment,” Summers says. Though the guitarist was initially hesitant to go into further details, Summers does go on to allude to a potential legal battle over the song’s songwriting credits.
“Watch the press; let’s see what happens in the next year,” he hints to White. “That’s all I can tell you.”
It’s not the first time that Summers has stated publicly that his riff was what prevented the song from being thrown away.
“That song [Every Breath You Take] was going to be thrown out,” Summers told Guitar World in a 2022 interview. “Sting and Stewart [Copeland, the band’s drummer] could not agree on how the bass and drums were going to go. We were in the middle of Synchronicity [The Police’s final album] and Sting says, ‘Well, go on then, go in there and make it your own.’
“I did it in one take,” he continued. “They all stood up and clapped. And, of course, the fucking thing went right round the world, straight to number one in America. And the riff has become a kind of immortal guitar part that all guitar players have to learn.”
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