Every Breath You Take

The arpeggio that opens the song is hypnotic before a single word is sung — a guitar figure that repeats and descends, endlessly patient, building a kind of pressure in the way that anything perfectly cycled builds pressure. Stewart Copeland's hi-hat work is meticulous, a web of rhythm laid over the groove with the precision of a craftsman who knows exactly what he's doing and why. The production is bright and clean, the kind of clarity that makes everything audible, including the things that shouldn't be. Sting's vocal is controlled and smooth, which is exactly the problem — the lyric describes surveillance, obsession, a love expressed entirely through the language of possession and watching, and the fact that the melody is gorgeous makes the content register slowly, like a delayed recognition. The Police built their sound at the intersection of punk energy and reggae space and pop melody, and this song sits at the apex of that construction, a hit that doesn't sound like anything else while also sounding exactly like what a number-one single should sound like. It became an anthem, played at weddings, associated with romance, which either represents a massive collective misreading or a testament to how thoroughly a beautiful melody can override a disturbing subtext. You hear it when you least expect it, and for a moment it sounds only like a love song, and then the words arrive, and you think about that for the rest of the day.