The Police - Every Breath You Take

"Every Breath You Take" is a song written by Sting and originally performed by The Police. It was released on their 1983 album Synchronicity (see 1983 in music). The single was one of the biggest of 1983, topping the UK charts for four weeks and the Billboard Music Charts (North America) for eight weeks. Sting won Song of the Year and The Police won Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal at the Grammy Awards of 1984 for "Every Breath You Take".

The track was written during the collapse of Sting's marriage to Frances Tomelty; the lyrics are the words of a sinister, controlling character, who is watching "every breath you take / every move you make".

"I woke up in the middle of the night with that line in my head, sat down at the piano and had written it in half an hour. The tune itself is generic, an aggregate of hundreds of others, but the words are interesting. It sounds like a comforting love song. I didn't realise at the time how sinister it is. I think I was thinking of Big Brother, surveillance and control."

—Sting

However, this fact has often gone unnoticed, or is ignored, and hence the song is often taken to be a love song.

The song had a music video (directed by duo Godley & Creme) that was praised for its black-and-white cinematography. Both MTV (1999) and VH1 (2002) named it as one of the best music videos ever, placing it 16th and 33rd in their respective top 100 lists. Daniel Pearl won the first MTV cinematography award for his work on the video (Thanks Wikipedia)

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