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Interviewer] Dom, when you played that riff — that thing has been sampled by so many people and used for songs. What do you think about that? Reggae artist Matisyahu covered the song, first as a Yahoo! Music exclusive and later on his 2006 remix album No Place to Be.

The song was the first of their five UK number one singles. [6] Rolling Stone ranked it number 65 on its list of the "100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time". Sting had a discussion with NME about how it pleases him to see people misinterpret “Every Breath You Take” as a love song: POLICE | Artist". Official Charts. Archived from the original on 26 October 2011 . Retrieved 28 March 2014. Music Week Fact Sheets. Singles" (PDF). Music Week. 8 September 1979. p.22 . Retrieved 12 October 2022.Gordon Sumner, better known as Sting, was born in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, on October 2, 1951. He is best known for his singing career, both with the 1980s band The Police and as a solo artist. Sting is also a distinguished songwriter and actor, as well as an active philanthropist in causes from environmentalism to human rights. The Police The song has been covered by several artists, including the band Fools Garden in 1995, whose version became a hit in Europe. The lyrics of "Lemon Tree" by Sting are a reflection of a sense of boredom, loneliness, and a longing for something new and exciting. The song's protagonist finds himself in a tedious and repetitive routine and is waiting for someone to save him from the monotony of his life. He looks to the outside world for inspiration and turns to his lover, hoping they will bring him some joy. Regardless of the turmoil during the recording, “Every Breath You Take” was a worldwide success. The music video, directed by Godley & Creme, even won the band the first Best Cinematography award at the 1983 MTV Video Music Awards. The song also stands as the signature song of The Police and has been played more than 9 million times on radio. The chorus is optimistic about the future, with the singer returning to the conversation with his partner where they talked about the blue sky, but he can only focus on the lemon tree. The motif of the lemon tree is symbolic of his frustration with the routine and the limitations he faces, while the blue sky represents the optimism he needs to break out of his cycle.

On 14 April 2020, Sting recorded a duet cover of "Message in a Bottle" featured the quartet All Saints. [41] The song has been referenced in several TV shows and films, including The Simpsons and Six Feet Under. All last summer I lived with Cheb Mami’s album. Eating, walking, all the time. His voice is an incredible instrument. He does whatever he wants with it, it really impressed me, as did his talent as a musician. I hadn’t got any idea of what he could sing, I didn’t know rai music. Then I saw him in Bercy with Khaled, Rachid Taha and this great orchestra… and Steve Hillage. Very impressed, I began to write a song on this experience and we met. I asked him if he’d like to sing for me, in a way to ‘authenticate’ my experience (ironic smile). He’s a lovely man. He sung without knowing what I was singing. As it happens, it’s about desire, craving. I asked him: just improvise, in arab, on my melody. Later I asked him what he was talking about, he answered that he sang about desire, craving of a loved person. I told him that it was exactly the song’s theme! So the music suggested those words. It was a sort of unconscious and automatic process. I always considered that it was the music which wrote the text. For this album, more than all the others, I began by writing the music, then I went walking and this music suggested a character, a story. Like a sculptor who kneads his material, then notices a nose, a leg. It’s longer, but more organic." Cash Box described the song's hook as "a mesmerizing guitar figure" that is similar to that of Blue Öyster Cult's " Don't Fear the Reaper." [9] Record World said that "Sharp tempo contrasts are bridged by Andy Summers' hard-edged lead guitar while singer-songwriter Sting pleads an affecting lead vocal." [10] Some seem to feel that they are a kind of god and reveal in their songs the way to fix the world. I made a parody of this and in the end it turns that what I’m selling is a detergent. It’s just a joke, nothing polemical, I believe".Top 100 Singles of 1979" (PDF). Record Mirror. London: Spotlight Publications. 5 January 1980. p.30 . Retrieved 27 September 2016. The Police performed at Live Earth, a 2007 charity concert to raise awareness of global warming and other environmental hazards, and performed "Message in a Bottle" as the US finale, with John Mayer playing guitar with Andy Summers and Kanye West performing a rap verse over the chorus of the song. Reggatta de Blanc (liner notes). The Police. A&M Records. 1979. AMLH 64792. {{ cite AV media notes}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) ( link) The first stanza finds the singer at home, sitting alone on a rainy Sunday, with nothing to occupy his time. He longs for his lover's arrival but is left hanging. The second verse sees him driving around aimlessly, feeling a sense of loneliness that leaves him looking for a point of view that isn't his own. He is still looking for his lover and is disappointed when he is left waiting yet again.