Art that conflicts with itself is – if judged solely on this quality – inherently more intriguing than art that does not.
How successfully a piece of art plays these contradictions against each other is a measure of its greatness, of the multitudes it contains.
This is all to say, Sting keeps telling us “Every Breath You Take” is about a stalker and if people, like, listened to the lyrics, man, they’d hear what he hears, “a nasty little song, really rather evil. It’s about jealousy and surveillance and ownership.”
I watched Andy Gibb singing it with some girl on TV a couple of weeks ago, very loving, and totally misinterpreting it. (Laughter) I could still hear the words, which aren’t about love at all. I pissed myself laughing.”
Sting, 1983 Interview with New Musical Express
Blog after blog will tell us that this is one of the most misunderstood songs of all time, even seeing references to surveillance technology coded within its words.
And while Sting enjoys the ambiguity he believes “Every Breath You Take” to have, we shouldn’t be shitting on the general public for not taking his song as darkly as intended when even its writer describes it, “on one level, … a nice long song with the classic relative minor chords”.
Hot take 37 years in the making: “Every Breath You Take” doesn’t successfully transcend its “classic relative minor chords” to truly subvert them, its message lost in its delivery.
Majority rule is often dumb and incorrect. But, “Every Breath You Take” beat out “Billie Jean” for the #1 single in America in 1983. Brides played it while they walked down the aisle.
Maybe “Every Breath” was too popular for its own good, but if that many people are “misinterpreting” something so powerfully in the “wrong” direction, maybe a song that just lists a bunch of things someone does is just as banal as it sounds.
Every breath you take and every move you make
“nasty…rather evil” lyrics
Every bond you break, every step you take…
Every single day and every word you say
Every game you play, every night you stay,
Many songs have tried, like Sting, to have it both ways.
Where they succeed they create masterpieces, where they fail they fail hard.
8 Other Songs Besides “Every Breath You Take” That Want It Both Ways
And decisive rulings on their pulling-it-offness
“Born In The USA”, Bruce Springsteen
Pulled It Off
Ronald Reagan (’84), Bob Dole (’96), and Pat Buchannan (’00) were knowingly and purposefully co-opting “Born In The USA” when Springsteen demanded they stop using his song about the tragedy of being born in a country that will inscript its civilians to fight a war unworthy of their lives, as a rallying cry at their Presidential campaign tour stops.
The anthemic nature of “Born In The USA” makes its message all the more sad, each repetition of the faux-patriotic chant reminding the listener of the lyrics in the verse: the consequences of being born in the USA.
“Royals”, Lorde
Did Not Pull It Off
“Royals” is the song dumb cool kids use to make themselves feel deep about being cool kids.
It proclaims to be against all the things…that it spends its entire chorus singing about,
Gold teeth, Grey Goose, trippin’ in the bathroom
Bloodstains, ball gowns, trashin’ the hotel room
We don’t care
We’re driving Cadillacs in our dreams
But everybody’s like
Cristal, Maybach, diamonds on your timepiece
Jet planes, islands, tigers on a gold leash
If that isn’t enough, “Royals”‘ unforgivable sin is blaming every other song by starting its verse “but every song’s like” only to end it, off-handedly, with, “but we don’t care, we’re not caught up in your love affair”.
Are we “driving Cadillacs in our dreams” Lorde or is “that kind of luxe just ain’t for us”?
By the way, “Luxe” is definitely a word people who are “luxe” would say.
Lorde wrote a catchy song that both romanticized and poetically described rich kids not giving a fuck, she should own it. Trying to appear above it all isn’t working.
“Excitable Boy”, Warren Zevon
Pulls It Off
Just as catchy as Zevon’s classic “Werewolves of London”, “Excitable Boy” goes a step further to subvert beautifully bouncy piano melodies.
Describing the gruesome actions of a serial killer who “dug up her body and built a cage with her bones” after coming down to dinner “in his sunday’s best…and ….rubbed the pot roast all over his chest”, “Excitable Boy” quickly grabs the listener by the ear.
Like “Born In The USA”, its chorus subverts itself as Zevon repeats the refrain of a wealthy family excusing away the actions of their criminally insane son as the actions of “just an excitable boy”.
The pop-perfect beauty of “Excitable Boy”‘s instrumentation amplifies its haunting lyrics as Zevon warns us about making excuses for our large adult songs. Each action: another chorus, another excuse.
“Roses”, Outkast
Just Barely Pulls It Off?
It’s weird to have a joke written into a song when that joke relies on a long lyric about how you hate your ex and hope she crashes her car…into a ditch.
In spontaneous conversation sure, say something mean, but funny, and take it back. But you don’t get to make a super long lyric with a super catchy melody, record it, produce and distribute it, to add “just playing” after. Yes it’s funny, but it’s the kind of logic desperate youtubers use to start fights and say, “it was just a prank” when someone actually fights them.
Ok, “Roses” is not that intense. I take back everything said, Andre 3000 can do whatever he wants, I was just…playing.
As much as this joke does work, let’s remind ourselves how long that lead up to “just playing” is, and then ask ourselves if it doesn’t seem as though the singer doth protest too much.
Caroline (Caroline) see she’s the reason for the word “bitch” (bitch)
I hope she’s speeding on the way to the club
Trying to hurry up to get to a baller
Or singer or somebody like that
And try to put on her makeup in the mirror
And crash, crash, crash into a ditch (just playing)
“Mr. Nigga”, Mos Def
Pulls It Off
With every line of his verses, Yasiin Bey empowers the black man he describes in “Mr. Nigga”
He under thirty years old but already he’s a pro
Designer trousers slung low cause his pockets stay swoll’
Could afford to get up and be anywhere he go
V.I.P. at the club, backstage at the show
He talks about how successful Mr. N is, and he does it in a song that sounds uplifting and catchy, only to remind the listeners of the thing successful black men are never allowed to forget: they do not have the privilege of their success being validated by their skin color, instead, their skin color imparts their success with negative presumptions from a racist culture imparting its gaze, and worse, its laws.
The beat is upbeat, the melodies almost sing-songy. Mr. N is very successful.
Just as the success of Mr. N is undermined by his skin color, the feel-good instrumentation of “Mr. Nigga” is undermined by the reality of its lyrics.
The catchiness of the song belies its menacing message: there are real consequences for the label the world has give Mr. N.
Bags inspected, now we arrested
Attention directed to contents of our intestines
Urinalyis followed by X-rays
Interrogated and detained til damn near the next dayNo evidence, no apology and no regard
Even for the big american rap star
For us especially, us most especially
A Mr Nigga VIP jail cell just for me
“I Took A Pill In Ibiza”, Mike Posner
Does Not Pull It Off
If humble brag had a sports team (probably in Portland) and that that team had a mascot (a snobby corgi) that mascot’s theme song would be Mike Posner’s “I Took A Pill In Ibiza”.
If you’re going to make a song about how cliche your rockstar life is please don’t ask us to feel bad for you as you fake-complain about all the cool shit you’re doing and how out of touch and hollow it makes you feel.
I took a pill in Ibiza
To show Avicii I was cool
What an uncool thing to do. i tOtaLlY rElAtE
And when I finally got sober, felt ten years older
But fuck it, it was something to do
Doing drugs with Avicii in Ibiza was…just something to do. Mike Posner knows he’s fucking with us.
I’m living out in LA
I drive a sports car just to prove
I’m a real big baller ’cause I made a million dollars
And I spend it on girls and shoes
I told you.
At best Mikey P is trying to couch his lyrics in a character, as though the lyrics are commentary about how shallow pop music is.
Except there’s no distance if you just – like Lorde – list the things you’re satirizing. There’s no fun exaggeration.
But you don’t wanna be high like me
Never really knowing why like me
You don’t ever wanna step off that roller coaster and be all alone
Even when Posner does drugs with world famous DJs he feels bad about it later.
What are we supposed to be getting from this song!?
You live an amazing life but you don’t appreciate it?
The genre of detached, self-aware rock star has been dead since Pink Floyd birthed and it and killed it with The Wall and “I Took A Pill In Ibiza” only confirms that.
Honorary Mention: “Funny Business”, Alice Merton
Knows She Isn’t Pulling It Off
“I don’t break hearts, I don’t do funny business, I just ride cars and watch them get hung up in it” is exactly something someone who does break hearts and does do funny business, would say.
“King of the Road”, Roger Miller
The OG Pulling It Off
While “I Took A Pill In Ibiza” is a song about a rich successful rock star masquerading as a song about a rich successful rock star being sad about being a rich successful rock star, “King Of The Road” is a song that pretends to be about a rich guy, but is really about a poor guy with a self-deprecating sense of humor.
When one remembers the melody of, and that pause before, the lyric, “king of the road” one remembers a happy sounding song sung by a honky-dorrie voice in a ho-hum melody.
But to remember the melody of “King Of The Road” is to misremember the song “King Of The Road”.
The song is actually about a man who is by no means, king of the road,
Third boxcar, midnight train, destination Bangor, Maine
Old worn-out suits and shoes
I don’t pay no union dues
I smoke old stogies I have found, short, but not too big around
I’m a man of means by no means, king of the road
The music gives the lyrics more playfulness than the biography of a train riding homeless man should have, up-playing the the whimsical nature of a life where two hours of work buys a small room, enough to make a man feel free, but to always remind him, he’s no king.