Synchronicity at... 41
Can Sting, Stewart Copeland, and Andy Summers agree on anything? Yes, eventually, if this year-late celebration of their biggest album is any indication
As long-time readers of this Substack are aware, the 40th anniversary of the Police album, Synchronicity, was last year. I celebrated with a massive post that included the two (unsuccessful) pitches I wrote for the 33⅓ book series, a live review of a reunion show I saw in 2009, and a review of Stewart Copeland's disappointing Police Deranged album from 2023.
Given that this is the Police, it's no surprise it took an additional year for the trio to issue an anniversary set. As I wrote in my 2007 33⅓ pitch, "Using the auto-summarize function on Microsoft Word on a document containing nearly a dozen interviews with the band, I came up with this summary:
Sting: Shut up, Stewart.
Stewart Copeland: You bastard!”
One can only imagine what it took for Copeland, Sting and Andy Summers to agree on six discs worth of music to release. However long it took, I'm glad they did. As much as I gleaned in listening to the album obsessively in the early '80s as a teenager or doing research as a nostalgic adult, this set contains much that is new, that contextualizes one of the most successful albums of all time.
Part of it, anyway. The first disc is the album itself, untouched. The second gathers all of the B-sides, many of which I already had in one form or another (though not all, giving the lie to the title of a previous box set, Message in a Box — the Complete Recordings). There are a few interesting inclusions. One, "Every Bomb You Make," is a fairly hamfisted remake of "Every Breathe You Take" that has Sting's self-righteous prints all over it. Alas, it was a collaboration with the British puppet satire group Spitting Image (think of the Genesis video for "Land of Confusion" for some U.S.-based context). They wrote the words, and Sting gamely sang them. They didn't age well, but it does show a slightly self-effacing side of Sting that I wasn't aware existed.
The other unexpected tracks on this disc are "derangements" of "Tea in the Sahara" and "Walking in Your Footsteps." These are remixes (or better, reimaginings) by Copeland that were set to be released in the early 2000s, but Sting apparently blocked this plan. Bootlegs of a seven-song set hit the market soon thereafter, and a few of the tracks sneaked out as the soundtrack for Copeland's Super-8 movie about the band, "Everyone Stares" (though they were not available separately). Somewhere along the line I downloaded "Walking In Your Footsteps," "Roxanne," "Can't Stand Losing You" and "Don't Stand So Close to Me." With the addition of "Tea in the Sahara" from this set, I'm only missing "One World" and "Demolition Man." Perhaps when the inevitable Ghost in the Machine set is released…
Those curios are interesting to diehards, but the real value of the set to fans is found in the third and fourth discs. These contain demos, alternate mixes and outtakes. These show how the songs evolved and different choices that were considered and abandoned. Mostly, they reaffirm for anyone paying attention how valuable Copeland and Summers were to the band.
Something like "O My God" sounds awful in Sting's first demo, a lazy funk workout with none of the drive and verve of the released version. Worse is a subsequent alternate take that sounds as if it doesn’t feature either Copeland or Summers. It sounds, actually, like an outtake from Nothing Like the Sun, the 1987 Sting solo album where, emboldened by what seasoned jazz musicians were able to do for his songs an album earlier, the singer decided he was much more soulful and funky than he had a right to.
From that October 1982 demo to December '82 and January '83 recordings, the song is stripped back, becoming something completely different, something worthy of this album. In general, Sting's demos include the hooks — the melodies and choruses that you remember humming — but lack the life of the released versions. "Every Breath You Take" is there, but it's not, not really. Other demos are closer to the finished product, with the October recordings of "Wrapped Around Your Finger" and "Tea in the Sahara" being fairly complete blueprints for released versions that barely stray from the originals.
And as neutered as Copeland seems on some of the biggest hits as the band wound down, becoming more a timekeeper than a functioning third of the band, there are alternate takes here that show Sting's tendency toward restraint was occasionally wise. A version of "King of Pain" that amps up Copeland's contributions might have more spirit, but it is distracting and too busy.
Lyrically, the songs were in place from the start. The only real revelation here is on "Walking In Your Footsteps." For those who think Sting could use an editor, or some sort of pretension filter, there was a worse lyric than "If we explode the atom bomb/would they say that we were dumb?" "Tyrannosaurus Rex, do you think our turn is next? Are we endangered species, when we walk in our own feces?" On that last line, Sting pauses and then sheepishly speak-sings the final word, like a kid who gets caught cussing and has to repeat the offending word to a parent. There are two verses on the demos —one of which does resurface in live versions — that were wisely excised from the recording.
Copeland and Summers, who contributed one song each to the finished album, are represented here with a handful of tracks. Copeland's "I'm Blind," which was never recorded by the Police and was subsequently reused on his "Rumblefish" soundtrack as "Brothers On Wheels," is included, as is "Ragged Man," another Copeland song that was recorded during the Synchronicity sessions but never used and which also was redone for "Rumblefish as "Tulsa Rags." The most interesting piece musically is Summers's. We get an outtake of B-side "Someone To Talk To" with different lyrics titled "Goodbye Tomorrow," and a demo of "Mother," but it is the two-minute "Loch" that is most intriguing. It was an instrumental that captures Summers playing around with a guitar synthesizer, meant as a bridge between "Synchronicity I" and "Synchronicity II." Instead, it was edited into a mix of the latter, included elsewhere on this set, that shows a, dare I say it, almost Talk Talk-like willingness to mess with the formula. Alas, it was never pursued, the band broke up, and here we are with 40 years of nostalgia for a commercial apex rather than seeing this as a point on an otherwise much more interesting continuum.
Another plus for the full box set is a live show from the Synchronicity tour. The only previously heard document was a set from Nov. 2 and 3, 1983, at the Omni in Atlanta, released on video as The Synchronicity Concert and later as part of the 1995 two-disc Police Live set. Included here is the band's set from two months earlier, a Sept. 10 show in San Francisco as part of perhaps the most '80s show ever, with openers the Fixx, Madness, Oingo Boingo and the Thompson Twins. Playing before 60,000 people outdoors, the band is sharp. The performances are better, the setlist slightly more expansive, and the mix much more sympathetic to the band's strengths. Of everything here, this is what I imagine I'll return to the most.
There are five different versions of this set — the deluxe six-disc box set, the deluxe 4 LP vinyl box, a two LP set, a two CD version, and a picture disc single LP. I haven't bought any yet, figuring that big set will drop well below its current $125 price tag after the first of the year. In the meantime, it's nice to revisit the first album that was truly important to me.
A final aside: After listening to "Walking In Your Footsteps" several times over the past week, I suddenly started hearing Gatorade's "Be Like Mike" jingle creeping in. Listening to the two songs now, there definitely is a bit of similarity in the rhythm that drives each, and they both have a vaguely world music feel. Then there is the “walking in your footsteps” notion to a kid wanting to follow Jordan’s path. It’s not the same sentiment — be like you to achieve similar success as opposed to follow blindly the same path that led to your destruction — but it is there nonetheless.
I have no idea if there is any connection, conscious or otherwise. The jingle came out eight years after Synchronicity, so it is possible, if not improbable. I'll leave you with this. After Googling “Be Like Mike” and “Walking in Your Footsteps,” I came up with four obituaries that include both terms and nothing more. Googling the name of writer of the Gatorade jingle, Ira Antelis, along with "Sting," you find a 2003 AdWeek piece. It's behind a paywall, so the only thing you get is a sliver from a Q&A: "What is your dream assignment? I owe a lot of my career, influence-wise, to Billy Joel. Elton John, Billy Joel and Sting are the major …" I assume "influences" is the word that follows, but who knows?
Sting, if you're reading this and decide to take action, I would be happy with a free copy of the box set as my finders fee.