Synchronicity by The Police (1983): Track by Track

<v Speaker 1>Hello everybody, and welcome to the Surely You Can't Be
<v Speaker 1>Serious Podcast, discussing and debating the iconic and the forgotten
<v Speaker 1>of eighties and nineties pop culture with your co hosts
<v Speaker 1>James D. Graves and Jason Colliphans.
<v Speaker 2>All right, welcome everybody. We are here for our Synchronicity
<v Speaker 2>Versus Frontiers episode. I'm so excited about this episode. I've
<v Speaker 2>been looking at these bands. Getting back to revisit them
<v Speaker 2>is going to be awesome. Jason, are you Are you
<v Speaker 2>all right? Are you there?
<v Speaker 3>Yeah? I'm sorry. I'm still I'm still trying to figure
<v Speaker 3>out who the biggest a held out of these three
<v Speaker 3>guys is. I can't tell which one it is, or
<v Speaker 3>if it's all three. I'm not sure.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I don't know. I don't know the three guys
<v Speaker 2>and the police. It's a struggle because obviously that none
<v Speaker 2>of them could get along. And I've had that same struggle, man,
<v Speaker 2>I really have. I can't tell.
<v Speaker 3>Okay, I go back and forth. I'm gonna be curious
<v Speaker 3>of who.
<v Speaker 2>You lean, right, That'll be a separate decision making part
<v Speaker 2>of this, I guess decide to judge, make the judgment
<v Speaker 2>of who the a hole is.
<v Speaker 3>This is gonna be interesting because you and I have
<v Speaker 3>talked off air, but you and I, we don't really
<v Speaker 3>have a relationship. Prior to the study that we do
<v Speaker 3>for the podcast, we didn't really have a relationship with
<v Speaker 3>either one of these albums.
<v Speaker 2>No, this was my older brother's album for sure, and
<v Speaker 2>he's eight years older than I am. So this album
<v Speaker 2>came out in eighty three, so he would have been
<v Speaker 2>just driving around this time, so he's gonna be jamming
<v Speaker 2>out to this one all the time. I know that
<v Speaker 2>we had the LP. I'm pretty confident that he also
<v Speaker 2>had the tape, and so as a new driver with
<v Speaker 2>a new car and a tape deck in it, I
<v Speaker 2>know that he listened to this a lot. But it's interesting.
<v Speaker 2>You know, we'll get into the songs a little bit later.
<v Speaker 2>But I had to ask him about listen to it.
<v Speaker 2>I was like, did you really ever listen to the
<v Speaker 2>first side? Did you listen to the As was like, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>I listened to it all the time. Like okay, because
<v Speaker 2>going back, I have some struggling with a lot of
<v Speaker 2>the first half of the album.
<v Speaker 3>So okay, see, I'm going to give a shout out
<v Speaker 3>to a good friend of mine named Melissa Mingle. I
<v Speaker 3>was talking to her about this. I said, did you
<v Speaker 3>have Synchronicity? She's like, oh, of course. I said, did
<v Speaker 3>you listen to the entire album?
<v Speaker 2>Just the hits?
<v Speaker 3>She's like, no, I love the whole album. I'm like,
<v Speaker 3>what'd you think of the song Mother? She's like, mother, hmmmm.
<v Speaker 3>She couldn't really place it. She texted me later after
<v Speaker 3>that discussion She's like, I can't believe I missed that show.
<v Speaker 2>So it was a show for sure.
<v Speaker 3>I don't want to. You know, we'll get into what
<v Speaker 3>we think about these songs individually, but before we do. Yes,
<v Speaker 3>this is Synchronicity by the Police versus Frontiers by Journey
<v Speaker 3>to the biggest albums of nineteen eighty three.
<v Speaker 2>Right, both released in nineteen eighty three. One of them,
<v Speaker 2>Synchronicity has the defining song for the Police. Frontiers has
<v Speaker 2>my favorite song from Journey on it. So it'll be
<v Speaker 2>an interesting matchup. Not Journey's biggest hit of all, not
<v Speaker 2>their defining song probably, but certainly one that's right up
<v Speaker 2>there close to the top.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, it's gonna be fun before we even get started.
<v Speaker 3>I mean, I thoroughly enjoy what we do for our podcast.
<v Speaker 3>But taking a deep dive into two albums that I
<v Speaker 3>didn't really have a relationship with has been a lot
<v Speaker 3>of fun. I'm anxious to get into what we think.
<v Speaker 2>Absolutely yeah, the two albums that were going through I've
<v Speaker 2>probably listened to at least a dozen times each since
<v Speaker 2>we came up with this idea.
<v Speaker 3>It's gonna be fun. I'm excited to do it. Rocks.
<v Speaker 2>So normally I would like tell a story about what
<v Speaker 2>I was doing in nineteen eighty three, But in nineteen
<v Speaker 2>eighty three, I was in second grade, and beyond having
<v Speaker 2>the Michael Jackson experience with the Motown and the Glove,
<v Speaker 2>I don't remember anything else about that year. You have
<v Speaker 2>any recollection of nineteen eighty three what you had.
<v Speaker 3>Going on, Well, I can tell you the biggest thing
<v Speaker 3>that happened in my life in nineteen eighty three was
<v Speaker 3>Return of the Jedi came out.
<v Speaker 2>Oh yeah, that is the first Star Wars movie that
<v Speaker 2>I remember seeing in the theater. I have no recollection
<v Speaker 2>of seeing the other movies for the first time. I've
<v Speaker 2>got no memory of Oh my gosh, Darth Vader is
<v Speaker 2>the Skywalker's dad, Like it was just somehow that's always
<v Speaker 2>been in my memory banks. So it was Sorry for
<v Speaker 2>the spoiler alert for anybody out there. Man, dang, I
<v Speaker 2>was gonna watch that tonight.
<v Speaker 3>You missed forty years too late, and I've been waiting
<v Speaker 3>for forty years to watch that movie.
<v Speaker 2>Oh my gosh.
<v Speaker 3>You missed one of the great movie watching experiences of
<v Speaker 3>all time. Man, I mean it rocked my world. And
<v Speaker 3>then I had to live with it for three years, you.
<v Speaker 2>Know, yeah, like, what what's going to happen? Right?
<v Speaker 3>I know we would talk about it on the playground.
<v Speaker 3>Do you think no way, there's no way possible.
<v Speaker 2>It's not real. He was lying, lying, right, He's a
<v Speaker 2>bad guy, of course he was lying.
<v Speaker 3>So yeah, nineteen eighty three, I mean I remember seeing
<v Speaker 3>Here's here's what I remember about nineteen eighty three. Okay,
<v Speaker 3>he talked, We talked a little bit about Pirate. First
<v Speaker 3>real experience with rock music. Return of the Jedi came
<v Speaker 3>out in eighty three that summer, Octopusy and Never Say
<v Speaker 3>Never Again. He had two James Bond movies in the
<v Speaker 3>theater at the same right, Trading places, right, training places.
<v Speaker 3>That's my memory. See that memory from the year, the
<v Speaker 3>first year of Boobies. Yeah, that's it. Okay, we can
<v Speaker 3>move on now. Congratulations the year d became a man.
<v Speaker 2>So in nineteen eighty three, these two albums were released
<v Speaker 2>Synchronicity by the Police and Frontiers by Journey. Today we're
<v Speaker 2>going to talk about Synchronicity. Next episode, we will be
<v Speaker 2>talking about Frontiers.
<v Speaker 3>As far as my relationship with this album, I knew
<v Speaker 3>everybody knew Every Breath You Take. I mean I was
<v Speaker 3>familiar with King of Pain and some others.
<v Speaker 2>Of course, I say it every musical episode that we have.
<v Speaker 2>I say this, but MTV. If it was not for MTV,
<v Speaker 2>this album may not have been the album that it was.
<v Speaker 2>The fact that Every Breath You Take was maybe their
<v Speaker 2>first song that became what they called a heavy rotation
<v Speaker 2>song definitely seal the deal. Just to talk about the
<v Speaker 2>history of the band, you know, you got three guys
<v Speaker 2>who come from very different backgrounds. A couple of guys
<v Speaker 2>from England, one guy from the States who actually grew
<v Speaker 2>up in the Middle East. He's got a real, really
<v Speaker 2>neat history all to himself. But it is Sting whose given.
<v Speaker 3>Name is Gordon Sumner.
<v Speaker 2>Gordon Sumner School. Does he become the hero that he is?
<v Speaker 2>Does he become the rock god that he is. If
<v Speaker 2>his name is Gordon.
<v Speaker 3>No way Sting is a super cool name. Gordon Sumner
<v Speaker 3>way low on the cool meter.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it's the English teacher that you don't want to
<v Speaker 2>go sit in his class. I'll start with Andy Summers. Okay.
<v Speaker 2>So Andy Summers was the oldest member of the band,
<v Speaker 2>and he had had a significant musical career before he
<v Speaker 2>ever started with the Police. He started playing piano when
<v Speaker 2>he was sick. He got his first guitar when he
<v Speaker 2>was eleven. By the time he was sixteen, he was
<v Speaker 2>playing in jazz clubs and pretty quickly he met up
<v Speaker 2>with this guy called Zoot Money, and it was this
<v Speaker 2>kind of jazzy rock, you know, classic fifties style rock
<v Speaker 2>that they were doing in the sixties. But they were playing,
<v Speaker 2>you know, they would share the stage with bands like Pink,
<v Speaker 2>Floyd Cream, Jimmy Hendrix. He was making it big in
<v Speaker 2>the sixties when these other guys were just still kids
<v Speaker 2>in school. Really. He and Zoop Money eventually formed a
<v Speaker 2>separate band. The band that they were in split up,
<v Speaker 2>and he and Zoot Money started doing lots of drugs together,
<v Speaker 2>and so they formed the psychedelic rock band called Tatalian's Chariot,
<v Speaker 2>and so he moved out to the States and they
<v Speaker 2>tried to do their psychedelic rock thing, but eventually that
<v Speaker 2>fell apart, and then he started playing guitar with kind
<v Speaker 2>of the second rendering of the Animals. I'm sure you
<v Speaker 2>know The Animals. They had the House of the Rising
<v Speaker 2>Sign and a whole lot of other hits, right, But
<v Speaker 2>his connection with that band lasted for one album and
<v Speaker 2>then it just kind of all fell apart, and pretty
<v Speaker 2>quickly he found himself unemployed, giving guitar lessons for next
<v Speaker 2>to nothing, and then he got arrested for drug possession
<v Speaker 2>and he thought his life was over. And then he
<v Speaker 2>meets his future wife, Kate, and he's like, wait a minute,
<v Speaker 2>I'm going to change my life around. Everything's gonna be great.
<v Speaker 2>They get married, they go back to London, but by
<v Speaker 2>this time he's nearly thirty. He's twenty nine years old,
<v Speaker 2>and so for being a rock star, that's over the hill.
<v Speaker 3>Right, Yeah, It's like getting in the NBA at thirty five,
<v Speaker 3>you know, right.
<v Speaker 2>And he happens upon this other band and then just
<v Speaker 2>because he happens to be playing the local clubs whenever
<v Speaker 2>Rolling Stones start looking for guitarist. He's on the list
<v Speaker 2>with like Eric Clapton as a possible new guitar player
<v Speaker 2>for the Stones, which is pretty amazing, but of course
<v Speaker 2>he didn't make it. Otherwise we'd be talking about Rolling Stones, right.
<v Speaker 2>And then he gets invited to play as kind of
<v Speaker 2>the lead guitar on this orchestral piece called Tubular Bells
<v Speaker 2>by the Newcastle Orchestra. And there's a couple of other
<v Speaker 2>session musicians there, a bass player by the name of
<v Speaker 2>Sting and a drummer by the name of Stuart Copeland.
<v Speaker 2>Sting's band was called Last Exit. Stuart Copeland's band was
<v Speaker 2>called Curved Air, and they happened to do another thing together,
<v Speaker 2>just a session band for this one off show in Paris.
<v Speaker 2>Again they meet up and at this time Stuart Copeland
<v Speaker 2>has put together a punk band.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, this is interesting. This is nineteen seventy seven when
<v Speaker 3>punk is going through the roof and Stuart Copeland says
<v Speaker 3>to himself, and these guys are talentless. They don't really
<v Speaker 3>know how to play their instruments. We don't need all
<v Speaker 3>these other people involved. We just need a singer and
<v Speaker 3>a guitar player, you know, a drummer and a bass
<v Speaker 3>player and that's it.
<v Speaker 2>That's all we need, and we don't need to know
<v Speaker 2>how to play, right, everybody was going to the shows
<v Speaker 2>by musicians who screamed and didn't sing and didn't know
<v Speaker 2>but three chords and barely knew how to play those,
<v Speaker 2>and somebody who just hit the drums hard. You know.
<v Speaker 3>Stuart was kind of the head of the band. Initially,
<v Speaker 3>he listened to Last Exit. He contacted Sting, invited us
<v Speaker 3>thing to play with him. They had a different guitar
<v Speaker 3>player who's actually a punk guitar player, Henry Pottovanni.
<v Speaker 2>Right, well, he really wasn't anything. He just knew all
<v Speaker 2>the right people, like he knew all the punk bands.
<v Speaker 2>And so as Sting is on his way over, Stuart
<v Speaker 2>Copeland shows Henry Pottavanni how to play the three chords
<v Speaker 2>that he's going to need to know how to play
<v Speaker 2>to be a punk band, and as it manages to
<v Speaker 2>fool Sting for at least a little bit in order
<v Speaker 2>to get him to agree to sign up to be
<v Speaker 2>in this punk band. And they go out and play
<v Speaker 2>and they're doing awful punk. But people can kind of realize, hey,
<v Speaker 2>these guys actually a couple of them seem to really
<v Speaker 2>know what they're doing, and that guy can actually sing
<v Speaker 2>a little bit.
<v Speaker 3>When they first started, Henry Pottovanni he was rubbish. Stuart
<v Speaker 3>and Sting just pretended to be rubbish, right right.
<v Speaker 2>They would follow bands that new four chords and they
<v Speaker 2>would be a band that new four hundred chords.
<v Speaker 3>They were trying to capitalize on that punk movement, which
<v Speaker 3>is crazy because they don't sound punk at all.
<v Speaker 2>Oh no, no, no, no, I mean the farthest from it. Eventually,
<v Speaker 2>you know they, I don't know what honestly possessed Stuart
<v Speaker 2>to try to get in contact with Andy Summers, the
<v Speaker 2>guitar player, and say, hey, we'd like you to join
<v Speaker 2>the band with us. Obviously they'd had these two sessions.
<v Speaker 2>They saw that he was a talented musician. But but
<v Speaker 2>why do that? I think maybe they were looking for
<v Speaker 2>a future beyond punk. I guess I don't know. But
<v Speaker 2>after just a couple of shows playing together as a foursome,
<v Speaker 2>Andy Summers simply said, I'm not going to play with
<v Speaker 2>this other guitarist. Just it's not going to happen, You're right,
<v Speaker 2>So he was ready to be out of the band.
<v Speaker 2>He's thinking things over. He's on this train and he
<v Speaker 2>gets off the train and at the same time that
<v Speaker 2>he gets off the train, Stuart Copeland gets off another
<v Speaker 2>car on the train and they laugh about the fact
<v Speaker 2>that they've you know, coincidentally met each other, and they
<v Speaker 2>have this intense conversation and then they call up Henry
<v Speaker 2>and say sorry, buddy, no longer in the band.
<v Speaker 3>And he was okay with that.
<v Speaker 2>He has this very French attitude about the whole thing,
<v Speaker 2>is like, who cares, you know, whatever it is, what
<v Speaker 2>it is, you know whatever.
<v Speaker 3>But he never really I'd never really buy it when
<v Speaker 3>people say that, like, yeah, I was originally in Van Halen,
<v Speaker 3>but I got out before they made a bazillion dollars.
<v Speaker 3>But it's okay, no big deal to me.
<v Speaker 2>But he actually he went to become a guitarist for
<v Speaker 2>Wayne Country and the Electric Chairs, who at the time
<v Speaker 2>that had happened, were a better known band than the
<v Speaker 2>Police was. It's funny because the guy who didn't know
<v Speaker 2>how to play anything got to be in the better
<v Speaker 2>band at the time.
<v Speaker 3>Next up on the Countdown a few by Wayne Country
<v Speaker 3>and the Electric Chairs. I think it's interesting in the
<v Speaker 3>early days when they finally get the threesome together. They
<v Speaker 3>start playing clubs around London. Yeah, and there's like six
<v Speaker 3>people in the audience, including the guy's wives and girlfriends.
<v Speaker 3>They were like, they were a nothing band.
<v Speaker 2>Andy's been all over and he's been in the UK,
<v Speaker 2>he's been in the US, and now he's back, you know,
<v Speaker 2>scrounging and he's with this band and going in and
<v Speaker 2>playing these punk clouds and the punk audience, for.
<v Speaker 4>Lack of a better word, are punks, and so they
<v Speaker 4>had there was this trend that started where they would
<v Speaker 4>spit on the musicians, Like I think it started with
<v Speaker 4>just you know, spitting their beer on them, but then
<v Speaker 4>it just turned into spit like they just hawk Loovi's
<v Speaker 4>at the band and and he was just like, you
<v Speaker 4>know what, I was tired of getting spit on.
<v Speaker 2>I did not want to do this anymore.
<v Speaker 3>I don't blame him at all. We talked a little
<v Speaker 3>bit about this in our Neirvana Pearl Jam episode. You
<v Speaker 3>listen to that, go back into the archives and listen
<v Speaker 3>to that. But people acting crazy, punching, people spitting up.
<v Speaker 3>But that's not my scene at all. I don't blame
<v Speaker 3>him one bit for that.
<v Speaker 2>I can handle a mosh pit. If somebody spits on me,
<v Speaker 2>they're going to get a fist in the face. So yeah,
<v Speaker 2>they started doing better music. And then Stuart Copeland comes
<v Speaker 2>in one day and he's bleached his hair blonde, and
<v Speaker 2>they're like, what in the world did you do? And
<v Speaker 2>then within a week Sting and get both done the
<v Speaker 2>same thing, and so weird. It was weird. It was
<v Speaker 2>kind of like the makeup for kiss. It gave them
<v Speaker 2>this identity. You know, they're they're the blonde trio over
<v Speaker 2>here at Bleached Blonde Trio.
<v Speaker 3>And Stuart's brother, who is their manager, says, well, we
<v Speaker 3>got to get you to the States. When they go
<v Speaker 3>over to the States, they play a club in New
<v Speaker 3>York City and it's like craziness, Like New York City
<v Speaker 3>loves them. And they sort of bounced around this little
<v Speaker 3>three week mini tour on the Northeast and they do
<v Speaker 3>really well in the States. Andy Summer's wife was in
<v Speaker 3>labor back in London, getting ready to have his daughter. Yeah,
<v Speaker 3>and he calls her and he says, I can't be there.
<v Speaker 3>He goes, there's a thousand people here, and they had
<v Speaker 3>just been playing in front of six or seven or
<v Speaker 3>ten back in London.
<v Speaker 2>It's so crazy to think about all of these bands
<v Speaker 2>that we talk about started at one place and then
<v Speaker 2>end up being megastars, and it's for a lot of
<v Speaker 2>them a really quick turnaround. And obviously the States tour
<v Speaker 2>did a whole lot for the police. But like before this,
<v Speaker 2>there was a time where Sting didn't have a place
<v Speaker 2>to stay sometimes, and so he spent the night with
<v Speaker 2>Andy and Kate, his wife allt Kate was pregnant, and
<v Speaker 2>Andy says, I can still remember us drifting off to
<v Speaker 2>sleep listening to Sting play this little ditty on his
<v Speaker 2>acoustic guitar that he had just come up with that night,
<v Speaker 2>singing rocksand and who would have known that it turned
<v Speaker 2>out to be the way that it was. You know,
<v Speaker 2>Bob Garcia was the guy who was in charge at
<v Speaker 2>that point. He was listening to this song and his
<v Speaker 2>dog started howling at the sound of the song, right,
<v Speaker 2>And he says, so at that moment, I knew that
<v Speaker 2>it was a hit. As it turns out, he was wrong.
<v Speaker 2>They released that single, it didn't do very well until
<v Speaker 2>they had that United States tour, and then they re
<v Speaker 2>released it the next year and it made them the
<v Speaker 2>name that they are. So after rock Sande had become
<v Speaker 2>the success, they sat down that had the band meeting
<v Speaker 2>that you know that David Lee Roth hated. But these guys,
<v Speaker 2>these guys were all smart, driven guys, and so they
<v Speaker 2>sat down and they said, listen, we are no longer
<v Speaker 2>going to be chasing the moment. We're no longer going
<v Speaker 2>to be pretending to be a punk band or pretending
<v Speaker 2>to be a whatever style of the band is today.
<v Speaker 2>We are going to be the one that makes the moment.
<v Speaker 2>And man, I gotta I say, that's what they did before.
<v Speaker 2>And since I can't think of a single band that
<v Speaker 2>I would say, oh, these guys sound like the Police, No,
<v Speaker 2>they are a unique band all on their own.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, I'm with you. Thing's voice really sets them apart.
<v Speaker 3>He has one of the most unique voices in the
<v Speaker 3>nineteen eighties for sure. Oh yeah, all right, So man,
<v Speaker 3>you're gonna have to help me with these titles. I
<v Speaker 3>don't even know how to pronounce these.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, Yeah, So we have a lot of very unique
<v Speaker 2>album titles, and forgive us for messing them up. But
<v Speaker 2>Sting was a very well read guy who wasn't afraid
<v Speaker 2>of being pretty esoteric in his lyrics and his album titles.
<v Speaker 2>So their first album was outlandis de.
<v Speaker 3>More and that's the one that had rock sande.
<v Speaker 2>Right, and then they had Regatta do Blanc.
<v Speaker 3>Okay, you may remember that for like Message in a Bottle,
<v Speaker 3>Walking on the Moon.
<v Speaker 2>Next two albums, You've got Zenyata Mandada, which I mentioned
<v Speaker 2>long ago, came out on my birthday in nineteen eighty.
<v Speaker 3>That's right, don't stand so close to me. Do Do
<v Speaker 3>Do Do Da Da da right right right.
<v Speaker 2>And then in nineteen eighty one you had Ghost in
<v Speaker 2>the Machine.
<v Speaker 3>Okay, so Ghost of the Machines. Really, when I kind
<v Speaker 3>of pick them up, that's spirits in the material world.
<v Speaker 3>And the big hit on that one was every little
<v Speaker 3>thing she does is magic.
<v Speaker 2>So Ghost in the Machine was a book by Arthur Koestler,
<v Speaker 2>who also wrote The Roots of Coincidence, which is about synchronicity,
<v Speaker 2>a psychologists philosopher who wrote a couple of books that
<v Speaker 2>inspired Sting enough to name his albums. So they do
<v Speaker 2>their US tour and then they do a world tour,
<v Speaker 2>and by world tour, I mean literally world tour. They're
<v Speaker 2>going to Egypt, they're going to India, they're going to
<v Speaker 2>places that no other bands are going to, and so
<v Speaker 2>they're gone for months on end, and Andy's got this,
<v Speaker 2>you know, new baby daughter at home and wife at home,
<v Speaker 2>and after the tour, you know, you would expect, hey,
<v Speaker 2>go home and see my wife and kid. But he
<v Speaker 2>decides to spend another three weeks in Bali with Stuart,
<v Speaker 2>and as it happens, John Belushi is staying at Bali
<v Speaker 2>at the same time, and they immediately hit it off.
<v Speaker 2>They're like, oh, hey, this guy's hilarious, and he's like, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>I'm hilarious.
<v Speaker 3>I have not heard this story.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and then they find this restaurant in Bali that
<v Speaker 2>serves omelets with mushrooms. Magic mushroom.
<v Speaker 3>Oh my gosh, that's a very John Belushi thing to
<v Speaker 3>order off the menu, right.
<v Speaker 2>Absolutely, yeah, I'm pretty sure he must have been the
<v Speaker 2>guy that introduced him to this place. So, so, needless
<v Speaker 2>to say, things weren't going very well. By the time
<v Speaker 2>Andy got back home after doing the US tour, doing
<v Speaker 2>the World's Tour. It's safe to say that the relationship
<v Speaker 2>among the band members was getting pretty strict. I'd like
<v Speaker 2>to avatas for a new fine.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, they had this sort of brotherly like relationship. They
<v Speaker 3>couldn't ever compromise, right, Right, So there's three very strong willed,
<v Speaker 3>very capable musicians, and every single thing has to be perfect,
<v Speaker 3>but it has to be that guy's version of perfect. Well, no,
<v Speaker 3>it's my version of perfect.
<v Speaker 2>Right.
<v Speaker 3>It would come to blow us, They would come to
<v Speaker 3>I mean fisticuffs.
<v Speaker 2>Right, And you know, we talked about trying to figure
<v Speaker 2>out who the a whole was at the beginning of this.
<v Speaker 2>Right from what I can gather, Stuart was very aggressive
<v Speaker 2>and Sting was passive aggressive, and Andy was kind of the
<v Speaker 2>mediator between the two of them, but he had his
<v Speaker 2>own you know, he'd stick his heels in frequently as well. So, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>you've got guys who are all very talented, very intelligent,
<v Speaker 2>who are all driven, who all have their own idea
<v Speaker 2>about the way things go. And I mean you pointed
<v Speaker 2>out to me like Stuart's got to be thinking, you know,
<v Speaker 2>what's with Sting writing all the songs? This is my band.
<v Speaker 2>I formed this band. And then Andy's got to be
<v Speaker 2>thinking what is with these guys. I'm the guy who has,
<v Speaker 2>you know, another decade worth of experience over them. I'm
<v Speaker 2>the guy that's played with other bands, I'm the guy who's,
<v Speaker 2>you know, the probably the best musician in the band.
<v Speaker 2>And then of course Sting is thinking, I'm the guy
<v Speaker 2>who writes all of the hits.
<v Speaker 3>Everybody had a reason to dig their heels in and
<v Speaker 3>claim leadership role in the band.
<v Speaker 2>Right, and so it kind of became a thing. Like
<v Speaker 2>there's a great interview with Martha Quinn after one of
<v Speaker 2>their shows and they keep bickering back and forth, and
<v Speaker 2>she's trying to ask questions and she's finally like, so
<v Speaker 2>do you guys mind just answering to some of my
<v Speaker 2>questions at the moment?
<v Speaker 3>Questions Thomas, Okay, I'll.
<v Speaker 2>Tell you what. Should we film me whipping Sting? How
<v Speaker 2>about it you and see me be singing? Then Sting
<v Speaker 2>throws his drink in Stuart's face and they take off
<v Speaker 2>like Sting thing's running and Stuart's ready to whoop some a.
<v Speaker 3>It really was legit to drink in the face. I'm
<v Speaker 3>getting out of here. Stuart's knocking over the table. Martha
<v Speaker 3>Quinn is just like, what is going on right here?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, She's like, okay, I guess we're done. She was
<v Speaker 2>not happy.
<v Speaker 3>So, yeah, they had a tough relationship these guys were
<v Speaker 3>like brothers and a lot of times they couldn't stand
<v Speaker 3>each other.
<v Speaker 2>So they get together for their fifth album, right and
<v Speaker 2>without hesitation, they are at the very top of the game.
<v Speaker 2>They are regarded as the best band in the world
<v Speaker 2>at this moment. That they get together for their fifth album,
<v Speaker 2>and in recording the album, they go to the most
<v Speaker 2>beautiful place in the Caribbean that you could go to.
<v Speaker 2>I mean, it's just how perfect could it be? But
<v Speaker 2>what happens?
<v Speaker 3>So, yeah, I heard Stuart Copeland talking about this. So
<v Speaker 3>they're at Montserrat. This is island in the Caribbean. This
<v Speaker 3>is the same place that they record A Ghost in
<v Speaker 3>the Machine. Same producer, Hugh patrim He said every day
<v Speaker 3>they'd wake up in their little bungalows and they'd see
<v Speaker 3>the water and they'd see the beach and it'd be beautiful.
<v Speaker 3>And he said, you'd just be whistling this happy tune
<v Speaker 3>on your way at the studio, and then by the
<v Speaker 3>time you got to the studio, this black cloud came
<v Speaker 3>over and you want to kill everybody while you're there.
<v Speaker 3>I don't know if you know this or not. Stem
<v Speaker 3>wrote a lot of the songs for this album, in
<v Speaker 3>Jamaica at GoldenEye, where Ian Fleming wrote most of the
<v Speaker 3>James Bond novels.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, he wrote, he sat down and wrote at Ian
<v Speaker 2>Fleming's desk, wrote Every Breath You Take.
<v Speaker 3>Take was written at the same desk that The Spy
<v Speaker 3>Who Loved Me was written.
<v Speaker 2>That's crazy.
<v Speaker 3>How about that is crazy?
<v Speaker 2>So they end up being in separate rooms, and Pagem said, well,
<v Speaker 2>we wanted to put them in the place that gave
<v Speaker 2>them the best sound for each of their instruments, and
<v Speaker 2>also so that they wouldn't kill each other.
<v Speaker 3>And also for social reasons.
<v Speaker 2>It's for social reasons, social distancing. There's some social distancing
<v Speaker 2>going on back in nineteen eighty three. So they had
<v Speaker 2>they had Stuart Copeland in the living room, they had
<v Speaker 2>Sting in the recording booth, and Andy Summers that was
<v Speaker 2>the only one that was actually inside the studio itself.
<v Speaker 2>It's crazy.
<v Speaker 3>They gathered in December of nineteen eighty two to record
<v Speaker 3>this album which would be released June one, nineteen eighty three.
<v Speaker 2>And as you mentioned, Sting came with almost all of
<v Speaker 2>his songs already demoed.
<v Speaker 3>Out to talk about that, because that is a big deal.
<v Speaker 3>Sting shows up with like ten songs, perfectly produced, ready
<v Speaker 3>to go, like, hey, guys, check this out. It's completely done.
<v Speaker 3>I don't need your help on any of this. And
<v Speaker 3>it's right every breath you take, and it's King of
<v Speaker 3>Pain and it's synchronicity too. I can see where these
<v Speaker 3>guys would be like, that song is really good, but
<v Speaker 3>that's not me. And and Stuart made the comment He's like,
<v Speaker 3>it was a great song, I just needed to make
<v Speaker 3>my mark on it, and Sting wouldn't let me, and
<v Speaker 3>that became World War three. I mean, I can see
<v Speaker 3>where that would be irritating, right.
<v Speaker 2>Oh sure, yeah, I mean, okay, I'll go ahead and
<v Speaker 2>get I'll disclosed. I'll disclose my judgment. I watched Stuart
<v Speaker 2>Copeland's documentary. I watched Andy Summers documentary. I didn't watch
<v Speaker 2>the Sting documentary, but I'm pretty familiar with Sting. When
<v Speaker 2>I started, I had in my head that Andy Summers
<v Speaker 2>was probably the jerk. After doing the research that I have,
<v Speaker 2>I got to say, Andy Summers is probably the guy
<v Speaker 2>that was maybe the little bit of the dork, but
<v Speaker 2>the guy that tried to make peace between the other
<v Speaker 2>two guys most of the time. I think Sting tried
<v Speaker 2>to be polite but firm about what he wanted, and
<v Speaker 2>rightly so, because he's the guy that's writing all of
<v Speaker 2>their hit songs. And I think Stuart Copeland was being
<v Speaker 2>a potty little brat. That's my I'm calling Stuart Copeland
<v Speaker 2>the ahole. Sorry, Stuart, if you happen to be listening
<v Speaker 2>in I haven't met you. It's not appropriate for me
<v Speaker 2>to say these things about you. But I'm just going
<v Speaker 2>by what I've seen.
<v Speaker 3>I can't argue with that assessment, although I think all
<v Speaker 3>three of them had their turn as Captain ahole right
<v Speaker 3>right when you've got I mean, if you're playing a
<v Speaker 3>flag football game in the backyard and Joe Montana shows
<v Speaker 3>up and you're the quarterback, yeah, you've got to move
<v Speaker 3>over for Joe of Montana right right hand.
<v Speaker 2>Joe Montana the ball, and if he happens to pass
<v Speaker 2>it to you, feel lucky that you've got to get
<v Speaker 2>the ball passed to you by Joe Montana in your
<v Speaker 2>own yard.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, And that was hard for guys like Stuart Copland,
<v Speaker 3>who is a super talented drummer, but he's just not
<v Speaker 3>a great singer, great great songwriter and that's not right.
<v Speaker 2>Knock on him is just not He's not a pop songwriter.
<v Speaker 2>I mean Sting had a pop song sensibility that he
<v Speaker 2>didn't have and that Andy Summers kind of had. But
<v Speaker 2>I mean he went on. He went on to score movies.
<v Speaker 2>So did Andy Summers. He scored some movies as well.
<v Speaker 2>They both are extremely talented musicians, just they don't have
<v Speaker 2>that special little thing that draws people into the music, right,
<v Speaker 2>They don't have the hook. Do you ready to start
<v Speaker 2>start talking about synchronicity.
<v Speaker 3>Let's let's jump in song by song, track by track,
<v Speaker 3>let's break it down. I want to know what you think.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, So the album itself is called synchronicity. It's based
<v Speaker 2>in a concept where you have two seemingly unrelated events
<v Speaker 2>which somehow are meaningful to each other.
<v Speaker 3>Can you explain that anymore than.
<v Speaker 2>Well, okay, yes, I will explain it more when we
<v Speaker 2>talk about synchronicity too here in just a little bit.
<v Speaker 3>Okay, Yeah, I think I think I know where you're
<v Speaker 3>going with this.
<v Speaker 2>Cool. As I mentioned before, it's based on this book
<v Speaker 2>called The Roots of Coincidence, which it says, hey, science,
<v Speaker 2>you should be paying attention to things that are unexplained,
<v Speaker 2>like paranormal phenomenon, supernatural type of things. These things don't
<v Speaker 2>happen very often, but they happen, and it's something you
<v Speaker 2>need to be aware of. And a lot of people
<v Speaker 2>wrote it off, but obviously it had a strong impact
<v Speaker 2>on Sting because you've got two different songs named for
<v Speaker 2>the concept on the album. The album itself nominated for
<v Speaker 2>five Grammys one to three. Yeah, musically it does this amazing.
<v Speaker 2>Like I said, you will not find a band. I mean,
<v Speaker 2>if you do, tell me about it. I'd love to
<v Speaker 2>hear a band that I go, oh wow. These guys
<v Speaker 2>are as good as the Police. Now. They did something
<v Speaker 2>where they merged genres of music that nobody had ever
<v Speaker 2>put together before, and they didn't. And you know, like
<v Speaker 2>they're kind of known for this reggae sound, but this
<v Speaker 2>album they kind of left the reggae behind. I mean,
<v Speaker 2>it's you get an inkling there, but most of the
<v Speaker 2>reggae on their first four Yeah, this is much different.
<v Speaker 2>And I can't say jazzy, I can't say world music.
<v Speaker 2>It's just it's a mix of stuff that's amazing. And
<v Speaker 2>they did all that and also achieved that sonic sound
<v Speaker 2>that we talked about with Thriller and with Hysteria, where
<v Speaker 2>the music is crisp and you feel each of the instruments.
<v Speaker 2>It's not muted and foggy like is the word that
<v Speaker 2>I always think of. It's more produced. We've talked about
<v Speaker 2>the producers before, and this one's definitely more produced and
<v Speaker 2>has more synthesizers in it, but it's still obviously with
<v Speaker 2>these guys being the musicians that they are, there's nothing
<v Speaker 2>fake about the production on this album.
<v Speaker 3>This album knocked Thriller out of the number one spot
<v Speaker 3>for a little while, Yeah kept it out for eight weeks,
<v Speaker 3>and then Thriller reclaimed it spot. But still right albums
<v Speaker 3>than Thriller in nineteen eighty three, that's pretty dag.
<v Speaker 2>I'm good right, as we said before. Produced by Hugh
<v Speaker 2>Pagem who he is the guy that came up with
<v Speaker 2>the gated reverb drum sound that we all know from
<v Speaker 2>in the Air Tonight by Phil Collins. Oh wow, nice,
<v Speaker 2>So not bad. I mean, I mean, if you're going
<v Speaker 2>to have a guy produce your album, that guy probably
<v Speaker 2>be a good one. But obviously he produced stuff for Genesis,
<v Speaker 2>produced stuff for Sting and several other big bands. But
<v Speaker 2>he almost walked out, Like it got to the point
<v Speaker 2>that they were fighting so much that he just he
<v Speaker 2>about said I'm done.
<v Speaker 3>He made the call. I mean, he said, I need
<v Speaker 3>to get out of here, and they're like, no, give
<v Speaker 3>us more time. All right, So let's dive in. Are
<v Speaker 3>you ready?
<v Speaker 2>Okay? So this concept of synchronicity comes out in this
<v Speaker 2>first song, which is almost like a description of the
<v Speaker 2>concept and the lyrics, and I'll just think, I'll say
<v Speaker 2>it a connecting principle linked to the invisible, almost imperceptible,
<v Speaker 2>something inexpressible, science, unsusceptible, logic, so inflexible, casually connectable, nothing
<v Speaker 2>is invincible. So it's it is two things that happen
<v Speaker 2>that seem to be completely unrelated to each other, but
<v Speaker 2>somehow are symbolically connected.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, this song is high intensity. It's kind of a
<v Speaker 3>good rocker, rapid synthesizers at the beginning for the time
<v Speaker 3>and place in nineteen eighty three, this perfectly fits that
<v Speaker 3>time and era.
<v Speaker 2>You know what, I'm going to go ahead, I'll be
<v Speaker 2>completely honest with our listeners. When I sat down and
<v Speaker 2>started listening to this album, I listened to the first
<v Speaker 2>four songs and I called you up, and I said, Okay,
<v Speaker 2>I don't think I can defend this album. But honestly,
<v Speaker 2>the first songs in the album are an acquired taste, right.
<v Speaker 2>I mean, if you like stinky cheese, if you like
<v Speaker 2>homebrew beer or fine wines, that's something that you probably
<v Speaker 2>didn't enjoy the very first taste that you had of it.
<v Speaker 2>But it's something that after you did it for a
<v Speaker 2>little while, you're like, oh, I'm catching the nuances and
<v Speaker 2>the subtleties and all the wonderfulness about this. So yeah,
<v Speaker 2>So after listening to it now a dozen more times,
<v Speaker 2>I could say Synchronosity one is good and I enjoy
<v Speaker 2>actually all of the songs almost on this first side.
<v Speaker 3>I enjoyed Synchronicity one too. This was the top of
<v Speaker 3>their set list for the Synchronousity tour.
<v Speaker 2>Sure yeah, and it's a great one to get the
<v Speaker 2>audience hyped up. Like you said, it's got that exciting
<v Speaker 2>upbeat tempo.
<v Speaker 3>Okay, we both like Synchronousity.
<v Speaker 2>Yes. So the next song is called walking in Your Footsteps,
<v Speaker 2>and this one is again, this is one that I
<v Speaker 2>listened to and I think, eh, and then I listened
<v Speaker 2>to it a few more times. I'm like, Okay, this
<v Speaker 2>is good, this is all right, and it's it's almost
<v Speaker 2>like a kid song. Have you looked at the lyrics
<v Speaker 2>at this.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, it's talking about dinosaurs and mister Bronosaurus, and you
<v Speaker 3>could see a bit like here's what I think about
<v Speaker 3>this song. Okay, it's funny that you say that, because
<v Speaker 3>this song sounds like what they would play in the
<v Speaker 3>Little People Carrier at Disney World or Animal Planet when
<v Speaker 3>you're writing the Safari Ride or something like that, you
<v Speaker 3>know what I mean.
<v Speaker 2>Well, yeah, so it is very is very much a
<v Speaker 2>kid's song. But then it goes on to talk about
<v Speaker 2>the Adam bombs larger meaning of mankind bringing about its
<v Speaker 2>own extinction, you know, just like the dinosaurs were the
<v Speaker 2>rulers of the world at one point and they're gone,
<v Speaker 2>so it looks like our fate is the same. So
<v Speaker 2>I like it. It's it's kid lyrics with a big,
<v Speaker 2>heavy meaning. How sting is that?
<v Speaker 3>I think you nailed it. I think you nailed it.
<v Speaker 3>I think it's a good song. It's kind of singable.
<v Speaker 3>It sounds a little bit international, maybe a little African,
<v Speaker 3>definitely belongs at Epcot or an Animal Planet, but it's
<v Speaker 3>good it's good.
<v Speaker 2>I like it all right. So our next song is
<v Speaker 2>the OMG song.
<v Speaker 3>Oh my God. For this song, oh my God, it's
<v Speaker 3>it's jazzy, there's there's a lot of horns, and this
<v Speaker 3>song actually dates back to Sting's days with his band
<v Speaker 3>Last Exit. It sounds like it belongs to a cough
<v Speaker 3>To me, I don't know, it's not really my style.
<v Speaker 3>I didn't really care for What do you think about
<v Speaker 3>this one?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah? This is again another one that I can listen
<v Speaker 2>to eat more easily now after having heard it a
<v Speaker 2>few times. But it took me. It took me a
<v Speaker 2>few times before I even caught that the last lyrics
<v Speaker 2>are a throwback? Do you know this? No? So the
<v Speaker 2>lyrics of this song have to do with somebody who's
<v Speaker 2>kind of struggling with God and their distance from God,
<v Speaker 2>which I mean, I don't know anybody who hasn't struggled
<v Speaker 2>with that issue as well. This one's maybe a little
<v Speaker 2>bit more bitter as it's going through this struggle. Then
<v Speaker 2>the end of the song, the last lyrics are you
<v Speaker 2>know the song? No, every little thing she does is magic?
<v Speaker 2>Oh my gosh, are you serious? That's cool? Yes? Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>So he throws back to his own song in this one,
<v Speaker 2>but instead of being about a girl, it's now about God.
<v Speaker 2>So it's heavy. It's I mean, it's it's heavy religious struggle,
<v Speaker 2>spirituality struggle that stings dealing with apparently. But yeah, I'm
<v Speaker 2>kind of with you. It's it's okay, it's okay at
<v Speaker 2>this point, but it's not certainly not a favorite on
<v Speaker 2>the album.
<v Speaker 3>All right, this is one I've been wanting to discuss
<v Speaker 3>with you. Okay. The next song is called mother d
<v Speaker 3>Your thoughts.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, that is enough of that. I tried so many
<v Speaker 2>times to listen to this.
<v Speaker 3>I'm just like, oh, it's so freaking weird, man.
<v Speaker 2>Oh my gosh, it is it is. It's not just weird,
<v Speaker 2>it's not good. I'm just saying it is flat out bad.
<v Speaker 2>And if you got folks, if you guys, if you're
<v Speaker 2>somebody out there who loves this song, let us know
<v Speaker 2>and let us know about the song. But this is
<v Speaker 2>instead of Carl Jung, we're talking about Sigmund Freud here,
<v Speaker 2>talking about all his girlfriends turning into his mother and
<v Speaker 2>his mother is always calling him. This one was written
<v Speaker 2>by Andy Summers, and he's he said he was considered
<v Speaker 2>to be the golden child of the family by his mom,
<v Speaker 2>and she put a lot of pressure on him. And
<v Speaker 2>when he made it big with the police, she was
<v Speaker 2>constantly calling him and living through him vicariously. And this
<v Speaker 2>was a song about that. And so maybe it's maybe
<v Speaker 2>it's appropriate that the Freudian song be shouted out.
<v Speaker 3>It's terrible this song. Okay, this is what I think.
<v Speaker 3>This is a song that would be effective. You remember
<v Speaker 3>at the very end of Silence of the Lambs when
<v Speaker 3>Clarius is walking around looking for buffalo Bill in the
<v Speaker 3>dark and all moss were flying around. That the type
<v Speaker 3>of song in the background that would be extra scary. Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it's not a pleasant song to listen. It just
<v Speaker 2>makes you uncomfortable in all respects. And was it you
<v Speaker 2>that told me that Sting's not singing on this?
<v Speaker 3>Sting said, no frigging way, I'm singing that stupid song.
<v Speaker 2>You know what, though he was on the song he
<v Speaker 2>played the obo.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, not enough to save it.
<v Speaker 2>Oh no, no, no, no, this one. I'm sorry. I'm
<v Speaker 2>sorry for the for the mother fans out there, but
<v Speaker 2>this is unless you're talking Danzig, this is not a
<v Speaker 2>song I want to listen to.
<v Speaker 3>Hey, here's the other thing. And I don't want to
<v Speaker 3>be cruel here to Andy Summers, who's a super gifted musician, right,
<v Speaker 3>but they each brought songs to the table. Hey guys,
<v Speaker 3>this song, this is the one I want. Okay, Hey,
<v Speaker 3>I've got these three or four. This was the best
<v Speaker 3>he could come up with.
<v Speaker 2>I mean terrible.
<v Speaker 3>Well, it's a nightmare.
<v Speaker 2>It is a nightmare. And just to be fair to
<v Speaker 2>Andy Summers, like he's not always wrong in what he
<v Speaker 2>thinks is good. Like there was another song that he
<v Speaker 2>wrote call Behind the Camel that Sting hated, refused to
<v Speaker 2>sing on it and there's no words to it. And
<v Speaker 2>he won the Grammy for Best Instrumental Song that year
<v Speaker 2>for this behind the Camel song. So he who knows
<v Speaker 2>from good taste? You know, sometimes people think something's terrible
<v Speaker 2>and it turns out to be good, And sometimes people
<v Speaker 2>think something's good and it turns out to be Mother.
<v Speaker 3>That's right, That's right, Okay, So that was Andy Summers
<v Speaker 3>only offering for this.
<v Speaker 2>Well, yeah, he co wrote, I mean, you know, he
<v Speaker 2>co wrote with Sting on another one. But but yes,
<v Speaker 2>Mother was his baby. What a weird thing to say?
<v Speaker 3>All right, all right, I did read that. I read
<v Speaker 3>some stuff on the internet that there are a lot
<v Speaker 3>of people out there that feel like this song keeps
<v Speaker 3>this album from being considered a masterpiece.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, that's this is this is still a masterpiece. That's not. Yeah. Anyway,
<v Speaker 2>so moving on, we've that's Andy Summers. Andy got one song,
<v Speaker 2>Stuart gets one song, and the next song is Missus Grandinko,
<v Speaker 2>which is Stuart Copeland's contribution with the album. What do
<v Speaker 2>you think?
<v Speaker 3>I mean, it's okay, Yeah, it's okay.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I actually like it. I enjoy the sound. The
<v Speaker 2>lyrics didn't really mean much to me until I started
<v Speaker 2>doing a little bit of digging. Do you know the
<v Speaker 2>story behind this? No?
<v Speaker 3>I don't.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, this is fascinating. So so Andy Summers wrote a
<v Speaker 2>song about his mother, Stuart Copeland writes a song about
<v Speaker 2>his father. But his father is a founding member of
<v Speaker 2>the CIA, like legitimately, yeah, like yeah, in nineteen forty seven,
<v Speaker 2>he is one of the founding members of the CIA,
<v Speaker 2>and he was like he was big time. He was
<v Speaker 2>involved in the overthrow of Syria, he was involved in
<v Speaker 2>the Iranian coupd a'ta and he was big time. I mean,
<v Speaker 2>he's written multiple books and just listen to this. You know,
<v Speaker 2>some of the things this guy has said, I kind
<v Speaker 2>of want to read his books. Here's a quote. My
<v Speaker 2>complaint has been that the CIA isn't overthrowing enough anti
<v Speaker 2>American governments, assassinating enough anti American leaders. But I guess
<v Speaker 2>I'm getting old. I can see, like maybe why this
<v Speaker 2>guy's kid and Sting didn't get along real well, you know.
<v Speaker 3>I didn't see eye politically, right.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, So this song, this song is about this policy
<v Speaker 2>meeting of these government officials, and I think is a
<v Speaker 2>throwback to Stuart Copeland's dad and his days in the CIA.
<v Speaker 3>Nice. That is a cool start. I've never heard that before.
<v Speaker 3>I do know that Sting could barely bring himself to
<v Speaker 3>do the vocals on this song. Yeah, he agreed to
<v Speaker 3>do two days. That's it. Yeah, I'm only seeing the
<v Speaker 3>stupid song two times and they I guess they got it.
<v Speaker 2>So him and Donimici, you got one.
<v Speaker 3>Chance on this, DONAMICI throwback to the Trading Places episode,
<v Speaker 3>all right, before we move on to the next song.
<v Speaker 3>For the record, so far, we've had Synchronosity one, walking
<v Speaker 3>in Your Footsteps, Oh My God Mother, and Miss Gradenko.
<v Speaker 3>Yes not stellar so far.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, if these were the only songs on the album, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>You've got You've got a hard album to argue is
<v Speaker 2>a masterpiece, but giving what follows, yeah, I'm not gonna.
<v Speaker 3>Have Okay, buckle your seat belts because here we go.
<v Speaker 2>All right. Synchronicity two.
<v Speaker 3>This song is amazing.
<v Speaker 2>Oh it's so good. It is so good in all respects.
<v Speaker 2>The music is on point and the lyrics so. Synchronicity
<v Speaker 2>one describes the concept of synchronicity, and then Synchronicity two
<v Speaker 2>gives you an example of synchronicity. It is the story
<v Speaker 2>of a man in daily anguish.
<v Speaker 3>Of being my whole life that's half to yeah, yes, ah.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, yeah, that's great. So he's in this daily anguish
<v Speaker 2>of being his mother screaming at the wall. His wife
<v Speaker 2>is complaining about boredom and fresh but all her suicides
<v Speaker 2>are fake, and every meeting he has at work is
<v Speaker 2>a kick in the crotch.
<v Speaker 3>I love that line. Not just the kick in the crutch,
<v Speaker 3>a humiliating kick.
<v Speaker 2>In the crutch. So and then meanwhile, the other story. Meanwhile,
<v Speaker 2>a monster in Lochness moves towards the surface of the deep.
<v Speaker 2>This is the example These are parallel events that are
<v Speaker 2>seemingly completely unrelated but are symbolically connected because the man's
<v Speaker 2>paranoia and psychosis ebbs closer and closer to the edge
<v Speaker 2>in the same way that the monster moves closer and
<v Speaker 2>closer to the surface of the water. It's outstanding, amazing, incredible.
<v Speaker 2>I don't know. I don't know what else to say
<v Speaker 2>about this. I love it.
<v Speaker 3>I wasn't a fan of it before it, but like,
<v Speaker 3>this is a song that I'm adding to my regular
<v Speaker 3>playlist and we'll listen to and rock out when it
<v Speaker 3>comes on.
<v Speaker 2>This is Yeah, this is one that will give me
<v Speaker 2>legs if I'm on my run for sure.
<v Speaker 3>Have you have you seen the video of this?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah? The video is the band playing on piles of
<v Speaker 2>like broken instruments, kind of a dystopian looking thing, and
<v Speaker 2>then when they throw the chorus, it's like these shots
<v Speaker 2>of NeSSI.
<v Speaker 3>It's an interesting video. It's very eighties. It made me
<v Speaker 3>think of like a cheap version of the Stacks from
<v Speaker 3>Ready Player one, right, it's nice, yeah, apocalyptic stacks of junk.
<v Speaker 2>And why since you said it, a shout out to
<v Speaker 2>all our Gunter fans out there, we love you.
<v Speaker 3>Oh yeah, definitely our r p O guys. But love
<v Speaker 3>the song, Love the song. Time to push the stop button,
<v Speaker 3>flip it over here, we go side to basut.
<v Speaker 5>Wow.
<v Speaker 2>When a song is played as much as this song
<v Speaker 2>is played, and you've heard it as much as you've
<v Speaker 2>heard it, and when it comes on the radio, you
<v Speaker 2>still turn up the volume, that's a pretty freaking amazing song.
<v Speaker 3>It's an amazing song. It's an amazing song. And you're right,
<v Speaker 3>for those of you who are so familiar with the song,
<v Speaker 3>you can't truly appreciate it. Everybody, take a deep breath,
<v Speaker 3>take a step back, take a fresh look at this song,
<v Speaker 3>because it's amazing. It really is. In May of twenty nineteen,
<v Speaker 3>BMI recognized this song as the most played song in
<v Speaker 3>radio history at fifteen million radio plays, and it overtook
<v Speaker 3>You've Lost that Love, Oh my God?
<v Speaker 2>Hop gun ahead, Yeah, we'll see where it falls. You
<v Speaker 2>either already heard it in top gun or you're gunning
<v Speaker 2>here pretty soon. We don't know. So this is their
<v Speaker 2>signature song, right, I mean, one Grammy for Song of
<v Speaker 2>the Year. It has, as you mentioned, been played on
<v Speaker 2>the radio more than any other song, and from what
<v Speaker 2>I understand, it's estimated to be about a quarter to
<v Speaker 2>a third of Sting's musical income. And for a guy
<v Speaker 2>who's put out as many hits as he has, that's
<v Speaker 2>saying something.
<v Speaker 3>It's incredible. In two thousand and three, obviously that's a
<v Speaker 3>long time ago, But in two thousand and three, Sting
<v Speaker 3>was still making two thousand dollars a day on the
<v Speaker 3>royalties of this song.
<v Speaker 2>Oh my gosh, that's insane. That is insane.
<v Speaker 3>That is a sweet gig right there, collect royalty checks.
<v Speaker 2>This is the one. This is the one that was
<v Speaker 2>written at Ian Fleming's writing desk. Sting had separated from
<v Speaker 2>his wife, Francis Tomty and started dating their neighbor and
<v Speaker 2>her best friend, Trudy Styler, who he eventually married, And
<v Speaker 2>he woke up in the middle of the night with
<v Speaker 2>the lyrics in his head every breath you take, every
<v Speaker 2>move you make, went sat at the piano, put that
<v Speaker 2>tune to it, wrote it in half an hour, wrote
<v Speaker 2>it in half an hour, and twenty years later, was
<v Speaker 2>still making two thousand dollars a day.
<v Speaker 3>It's incredible, it's incredible. I heard him comment on the
<v Speaker 3>tone of this song. Yeah, he said, it's sinister, but
<v Speaker 3>seductively dressed.
<v Speaker 2>So it's weird. You know, a lot of people thought
<v Speaker 2>that this was like a happy, peppy, upbeat song, and
<v Speaker 2>he was just kind of floored by this idea because
<v Speaker 2>to him, this was this kind of stalker esque.
<v Speaker 3>Right, people played it at their weddings and stuff.
<v Speaker 2>That's weird. Yeah, that's strange. Just never ever has it
<v Speaker 2>seemed to me to be an upbeat song. It has
<v Speaker 2>always been this kind of notion of I'm standing in
<v Speaker 2>the bushes and I'm observing everything that you do.
<v Speaker 3>You know what's interesting about this song. In Sting's first
<v Speaker 3>solo album, he has a song called if you Love
<v Speaker 3>Somebody Set Them Free. Yeah, it was written in response
<v Speaker 3>to this song. Because so many people played this song
<v Speaker 3>at their wedding that he was like, I gotta make
<v Speaker 3>this right. I got to give him an actual love.
<v Speaker 2>Song, right Yeah. Yeah, people would tell him I played
<v Speaker 2>that at my wedding. He said, well, good luck.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, that is awesome listening to Sting. He said, as
<v Speaker 3>soon as he wrote it, he knew it was the
<v Speaker 3>best thing that the Police would ever make.
<v Speaker 2>So despite the fact that Stuart Copeland is still making
<v Speaker 2>lots of money off of this album, he still hates
<v Speaker 2>the arrangement of this song.
<v Speaker 3>I know, that's so crazy.
<v Speaker 2>This was the one that they came to actual physical
<v Speaker 2>blows in the studio. This was the one that Pagean
<v Speaker 2>was like, I am out of here. I can't handle
<v Speaker 2>these guys anymore. By the way, little note right in
<v Speaker 2>the middle of the song, little piano key, one key,
<v Speaker 2>right in the middle of the song. That was Hugh
<v Speaker 2>Pageant's contribution to this song.
<v Speaker 3>And that's maybe my favorite part of the whole song.
<v Speaker 2>Just subtle and beautiful in its simplicity. It's it's incredible.
<v Speaker 3>Is this the high Hat story because we got to
<v Speaker 3>high have story.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, So obviously, you know, they put this song together
<v Speaker 2>and as we've mentioned, Sting had the arrangement, like he
<v Speaker 2>had the demoed out, he knew how he wanted it,
<v Speaker 2>and they put the song and he basically said, I'm
<v Speaker 2>not gonna I'm not gonna do this anyway other than
<v Speaker 2>the way that I want to do it. That's it.
<v Speaker 2>You know. The drums are going to be this and
<v Speaker 2>the guitar is going to be this, and that is it.
<v Speaker 2>And so they recorded it and the next day, when
<v Speaker 2>the rest of the guys weren't in the studio, Stuart
<v Speaker 2>Copeland came in to Hugh Pageant and said, hey, I
<v Speaker 2>think we need to put a high hat in here.
<v Speaker 2>And of course Hugh is just the guy who just
<v Speaker 2>wants people to get along, so it's like okay, and
<v Speaker 2>he puts the high pad in. And then the next
<v Speaker 2>day Sting comes in and he's like, all right, let's
<v Speaker 2>listen to every breath you take and he's like, what
<v Speaker 2>is that effing hi hat doing in the song take
<v Speaker 2>it out? Love that? Wow? So and then the video,
<v Speaker 2>I mean, everybody has got to know the video. This
<v Speaker 2>was the one that MTV wouldn't stop playing, and these
<v Speaker 2>guys were the they were the Darling Stars for MTV
<v Speaker 2>for that summer, and this video was on all the time,
<v Speaker 2>and I watched it every time it came on. I
<v Speaker 2>never got tired of seeing that ashtray in black and white.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, it's it's very noir.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it's actually based on a nineteen forty four film
<v Speaker 2>called Jam in the Blues. And I think that's why
<v Speaker 2>in the song Sting is playing the stand up bass,
<v Speaker 2>and him playing that just gave them this sort of
<v Speaker 2>air of sophistication that nobody else on MTV. I mean,
<v Speaker 2>just think about think about the music videos that were
<v Speaker 2>out on MTV at this time. You got def Leppard
<v Speaker 2>blowing up foully guitars and setting trees on fire. And
<v Speaker 2>here's this video where they're just standing in like very
<v Speaker 2>contrasted black and white with his blue tint and it's
<v Speaker 2>all very jazzy.
<v Speaker 3>That's right. Nobody playing chess with a wizard in this video.
<v Speaker 2>I forgot about that.
<v Speaker 3>Throw back to our Pyromania episode. Yah was the first
<v Speaker 3>single released released May twentieth, nineteen eighty three.
<v Speaker 2>Next song, King of Pain a little Black.
<v Speaker 3>Spottom side.
<v Speaker 2>This is the same, yes.
<v Speaker 3>All right. This is the second single released August of
<v Speaker 3>nineteen eighty three.
<v Speaker 2>This one is also about Sting's separation from stuff. This
<v Speaker 2>whole second side is really kind of you know, people
<v Speaker 2>and misery write some pretty good songs, and Sting obviously
<v Speaker 2>this wasn't just an insignificant thing to him. The fact
<v Speaker 2>that he had left his wife was incredibly painful to him.
<v Speaker 2>It's obviously big news in the UK and the rest
<v Speaker 2>of the world, and so he goes to the Caribbean
<v Speaker 2>to escape and happens. I don't know, I don't know
<v Speaker 2>how you see this with the sun, but apparently actually
<v Speaker 2>sees a little black spot on the sun and points
<v Speaker 2>it out to Trudy Styler and he's like, there's a
<v Speaker 2>little black spot on the sun today, and then he says,
<v Speaker 2>that's my soul up there, just kind of symbolized his
<v Speaker 2>pain and is it's sad. Yeah, it's a painful song,
<v Speaker 2>but again, unbelievably good.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, it's it's fantastic. Starts out pretty simple with just
<v Speaker 3>those piano chords. Yeah, and it hooks me right off
<v Speaker 3>the bat. I mean, this reached number one on the
<v Speaker 3>Mainstream Rock chart and number three on the Hot one hundred.
<v Speaker 2>I kind of don't want to I want to talk
<v Speaker 2>about King of Pain more because I just want to
<v Speaker 2>be able to listen to it longer.
<v Speaker 3>I don't want to. Really so good, we should just
<v Speaker 3>get out of the way play it.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I mean yeah, I mean just that, just that
<v Speaker 2>first line, there's a little black spot on the sun today,
<v Speaker 2>it's the same old thing as yesterday. Is so poetic
<v Speaker 2>and beautiful, and I just it's it's amazing.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, I love it too. Is this where we throw
<v Speaker 3>in our weird L reference? Weird L has a song
<v Speaker 3>parody and King of Pain. It's called King of Swede.
<v Speaker 5>We love all that's weird, Yeah, wed This is actually
<v Speaker 5>wed ELL's third appearance on the Shirley Can't Be Serious
<v Speaker 5>podcast Probably Yeah that yes, spells like Nirvana Ravana and
<v Speaker 5>King of Swaye and eating there we go.
<v Speaker 2>Okay. Next song on the album is Wrapped around Your Finger. Well,
<v Speaker 2>I'm gonna go on a limb here and say, I
<v Speaker 2>think this is also about his breakup with his wife.
<v Speaker 3>He's going through a rough patch right here.
<v Speaker 2>This one. I mean, he's got he's got a lot
<v Speaker 2>of stuff going on here. He's got Greek mythology, he's
<v Speaker 2>got faust, he's got Sorcerer's apprentice and and it's this.
<v Speaker 2>This is kind of the vengeful, like the kind of
<v Speaker 2>the browbeaten husband. I think turn on this because this
<v Speaker 2>is a spiteful song, like it's about turning the tables
<v Speaker 2>on someone who has been overbearing on you. And it's
<v Speaker 2>got a really kind of dark beginning, but then the
<v Speaker 2>end is triumphant, you know, it's like the tables have turned.
<v Speaker 3>The video for me caught my eye as a young kid.
<v Speaker 2>This is the candle video for anybody who doesn't Remember
<v Speaker 2>this is the I mean, if I say Sting and Candles,
<v Speaker 2>you know what video I'm talking about.
<v Speaker 3>It's really a cool video trick that they do. They
<v Speaker 3>played the music sped up and they would dance and
<v Speaker 3>sing to the sped up version. So when they slowed
<v Speaker 3>the music down, we as the audience watching this video,
<v Speaker 3>it plays normal to us, but everything they're moving is
<v Speaker 3>very slow motion and deliberate and mysterious looking. Super cool video.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I'm gonna go through the labyrinth. This is another.
<v Speaker 2>This is one that Miss Piggy did the Muppets take Manhattan.
<v Speaker 2>Just throw that out there. Miss Piggy did a montage
<v Speaker 2>that was very much wrapped around your Finger Candles. I'll
<v Speaker 2>just you know.
<v Speaker 3>For those who don't know the Surely you can't be
<v Speaker 3>serious podcasts, loves Weird Al and the Muppets, we really do.
<v Speaker 3>Wrapped Around Your Finger was the fourth single released, another
<v Speaker 3>mega hit great song love It.
<v Speaker 2>And then the next song that we have is called
<v Speaker 2>Tea and This Era. This song is inspired by a
<v Speaker 2>story in a book by Paul Bowels called The Sheltering Sky.
<v Speaker 2>These are the sisters who have they make an arrangement
<v Speaker 2>with the prints that they're going to have tea with
<v Speaker 2>him in the sahara and they wait for him and
<v Speaker 2>wait for him, and he never shows up, but then
<v Speaker 2>it's too late for them and they're burned up in
<v Speaker 2>the desert.
<v Speaker 3>Right And Sting really loves this song. He's kind of
<v Speaker 3>proud of this one. Yeah, I'm not a big fan
<v Speaker 3>of it.
<v Speaker 2>What'd you think? I still like it now? This one's
<v Speaker 2>a great Yeah, this one belongs on the B side
<v Speaker 2>with all of the other fantastic songs. In my opinion,
<v Speaker 2>it's the music is subtle and beautiful. What Andy Summers
<v Speaker 2>does on this one is a really unique, a unique
<v Speaker 2>sound to him, Like I don't know that, I don't
<v Speaker 2>know that I've heard any other guitarist doing this, so
<v Speaker 2>I had to kind of look it up to see
<v Speaker 2>what he was doing. But he's got this technique where
<v Speaker 2>the notes that you're hearing from the guitar are like
<v Speaker 2>a delayed effect without hearing the actual notes that are played.
<v Speaker 2>And I don't know a better way to say that,
<v Speaker 2>but it's just it's very airy, kind of sparkly sounding
<v Speaker 2>guitar that doesn't sound exactly like a guitar because it's
<v Speaker 2>kind of an effect with out the actual original note
<v Speaker 2>of the guitar playings pretty neat Okay.
<v Speaker 3>I found this quote. Sting said that despite his affection
<v Speaker 3>for the song, he's claimed that the track was played
<v Speaker 3>too fast. Yeah, he said in nineteen ninety three. I've
<v Speaker 3>always loved the song. There's so much space in it.
<v Speaker 3>But I think we played it too fast on the
<v Speaker 3>album and live. It's just a song. I wasn't in
<v Speaker 3>love with it so well.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, but I mean, thinking about the song, would you
<v Speaker 2>say it's too fast? No?
<v Speaker 3>I would not, right.
<v Speaker 2>Sorry, I don't get right on this what Sting? I
<v Speaker 2>don't one should not be his low down no. And
<v Speaker 2>then the final note. Some people, Hey, if you got
<v Speaker 2>the LP on this one, that was the end of
<v Speaker 2>the album for you tee in the sahara and you're like, oh,
<v Speaker 2>I guess we're done. But if you got the tape
<v Speaker 2>or if you got CD, you got the final track,
<v Speaker 2>which is Murdered by Numbers. What's that You've decided on
<v Speaker 2>a cull first to make a stort of you.
<v Speaker 3>There's a movie starring Sandra Bullock called Murder by Numbers,
<v Speaker 3>but it's actually shown in the movie Copycat. They actually
<v Speaker 3>the police. It's like how they're gonna catch the killer
<v Speaker 3>and they post the lyrics on the wall to analyze them.
<v Speaker 2>I have not seen either one of those movies, is copycat,
<v Speaker 2>the one that had what's.
<v Speaker 3>That singer's name, Harry Connick Jr.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, was he in that one.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, he's the he's the killer. He's the bad guy.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, and so it's like he leaves the lyrics as
<v Speaker 2>a clue or something like that.
<v Speaker 3>Well, he's like the Hannibal lecter. He's like the guy
<v Speaker 3>in jail who's helping her find that the other one.
<v Speaker 2>Oh wow, it does sound a whole lot like Silence
<v Speaker 2>of the Lambs.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, it's been a while, so my my details are
<v Speaker 3>a little hazy, but okay, anyway, what do you think
<v Speaker 3>of the song?
<v Speaker 2>I'll watch these two movies later on. Sounds good, So
<v Speaker 2>I love the song. I think it is fantastic and
<v Speaker 2>it is so jazzy, So what are your thoughts.
<v Speaker 3>It's jazzy. I mean it's a little finger snapping at
<v Speaker 3>the coffee shop, little jazzy number.
<v Speaker 2>I'd love it. I absolutely love it. So you know
<v Speaker 2>that we've got all the stories of their animosity and
<v Speaker 2>their hate for each other while they're on this island.
<v Speaker 2>But this is one where like they're all hanging out
<v Speaker 2>and having dinner together, and you know, of course Andy
<v Speaker 2>just has his guitar in his hand because he walks
<v Speaker 2>around with the car all day long, right, and he
<v Speaker 2>starts playing this little jazzy little chord progression, you know,
<v Speaker 2>some groovy little jazz chords, and stings like, oh hey,
<v Speaker 2>I like that. And so then Sting records, you know,
<v Speaker 2>your little hand recorder records him, leaves, and while Andy
<v Speaker 2>and Stewart are having dessert, Sting takes a walk up
<v Speaker 2>the volcano on the island there and writes the song.
<v Speaker 2>They come back and then record. They all set up,
<v Speaker 2>went to the recording spots, recorded in one take. That's amazing.
<v Speaker 3>It's crazy, you know, it's good to I mean, it's sketchy.
<v Speaker 2>But I mean, if you know the history of the
<v Speaker 2>band here, right, so this is something that we didn't
<v Speaker 2>go into. But the Police, I mean, this is their
<v Speaker 2>best album by most standards. This is their pinnacle. And
<v Speaker 2>after this album they were done. They I mean they
<v Speaker 2>they didn't have any swan song, they didn't announce a breakup.
<v Speaker 2>It was just this weird evaporation. It's like a disintegration. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>it's crazy, and so then you know, then you get
<v Speaker 2>all of the stories of the fights and the animosity
<v Speaker 2>and the power struggles, and as it turns out, for
<v Speaker 2>the last song on the last album that they ever do,
<v Speaker 2>it's this beautiful coming together where it's it's magical in
<v Speaker 2>that it happens in this kind of weird way. There's
<v Speaker 2>this beautiful walk involved, and then they get together and
<v Speaker 2>it is perfectly done as a team, as a group.
<v Speaker 3>It's awesome, nice, nice, Okay, Well, before we wrap up,
<v Speaker 3>for me, I think it's interesting just to break down
<v Speaker 3>the layout of the album. The first side it's just
<v Speaker 3>kind of okay and then a little bit of terrible
<v Speaker 3>mixed in until you hit synchronicity too, and then then
<v Speaker 3>the album just takes off, man, and it's so good
<v Speaker 3>from that point forward. I'm always curious about the song selection,
<v Speaker 3>how they choose what's first and third and fifth, and
<v Speaker 3>I mean they think about these decisions, you know, I mean.
<v Speaker 2>They do, but from what I've heard on this one,
<v Speaker 2>they were having to flip a coin to figure out
<v Speaker 2>what was going to go on, what wasn't, and what
<v Speaker 2>order they were going to go in.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, and apparently Sting lost the flip on whether Mother
<v Speaker 3>and should be burned and not.
<v Speaker 2>Out there is there is one ugly ugly there's a
<v Speaker 2>little black spot on this brayishining sound of an album.
<v Speaker 2>But now that I still think, and we'll go into
<v Speaker 2>more detail on our next episode, But I still think
<v Speaker 2>Synchronicity one is fantastic. It belongs in this album, and
<v Speaker 2>I think that obviously side to Synchronicity two on is
<v Speaker 2>too beautiful to compare to anything else. But we'll see
<v Speaker 2>you know, because Frontiers is also an incredible album, So
<v Speaker 2>next week join us for that.
<v Speaker 3>All right, We'll see you back here next week when
<v Speaker 3>we break down Frontiers by Journey.
<v Speaker 2>And as always, thank you so much for listening to us.
<v Speaker 2>Your comments on Facebook and on Twitter means so much
<v Speaker 2>to us. You're listening to us means so much to us.
<v Speaker 2>We're overwhelmed by your support. Please if you haven't followed
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<v Speaker 2>five star rating, honest or dishonest, with no cared. It's
<v Speaker 2>been fun, man, it's been fun. I'll see you next week, Jason.
<v Speaker 2>All music images and movie clips are used for the
<v Speaker 2>purposes of commentary and education in conjunction with the fair
<v Speaker 2>Use agreement under the US copyright law.