As Andy Summers explains it, the Police’s biggest hit wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for his guitar line.
“That song was going to be thrown out,” Summers told Guitarist in 2022 of the track “Every Breath You Take.“ After making several attempts at the tune, bassist Sting and drummer Stewart Copeland were ready to give up. “Sting and Stewart could not agree on how the bass and drums were going to go.”
Summers had an idea of what the song needed — an ear-catching electric guitar riff to give it some interest. But as he says, it wasn’t about creating a starring role for himself. “It was more about keeping those other bastards happy.”
Sting took the bait.
“Sting says, ‘Well, go on then, go in there and make it your own,’” Summers recalled. “And I did it in one take. They all stood up and clapped.
“And, of course, the fucking thing went right round the world, straight to number one in America. And the riff has become a kind of immortal guitar part that all guitar players have to learn.”
The lead single from the trio’s fifth and final studio album, Synchronicity, “Every Breath You Take” became the Police’s biggest hit. It topped the charts on both sides of the Atlantic, spending eight weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 — the only time the band ever reached the summit — and went on to win Grammy Awards for “Song of the Year” and “Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal.”
It was also the top-selling single of 1983 in the U.S. and the fifth best-selling single of the 1980s in the country.
Summers told Guitar Player in 2025 that he was unhappy not to have received a writing credit for the song. Discussing his guitar work on the track, he explained how he transformed the tune with his arpeggiated, chorus-tinged lines, played on his modified 1963 Fender Telecaster.
“There wasn’t a guitar part on it when Sting wrote it,” Summers explained. “It was just him singing, with this Hammond organ kind of thing, like Billy Preston or something. It didn’t sound like the Police at that point.”
The demo for the song seems to bear him out.
By the time the band recorded Synchronicity with co-producer Hugh Padgham at AIR Studios in Montserrat, its members were increasingly at odds. The delicate balance of creative visions and egos was splintering, particularly between Sting and Copeland. The album would mark the end of the group’s recording run, and the three musicians went their separate ways after touring to support it.
“I think we were in a difficult position,” Summers told Guitar Player. “Clearly, Sting wanted to leave the band, and yet we had this massive album all over the world.”
More than four decades later, Summers still believes his riff deserves recognition as a defining contribution to “Every Breath You Take.”
There wasn’t a guitar part on it when Sting wrote it. It was just him singing, with this Hammond organ kind of thing, like Billy Preston or something.”
— Andy Summers
“I just went into the studio and I heard the chord sequence for it, and it immediately came to me to play the riff I came up with. It was very much in the Police guitar style, if you like.”
As for what inspired it, Summers believes his creation may have stemmed from his early 1980s collaborations with Robert Fripp.
“At the time I’d made one record with Robert” — 1982’s I Advance Masked — “and I think we were due to make another one. I was looking for material.”
But he says the line’s harmonic structure also owes much to the classical guitar genre.
“One of the things I had engaged with in my life, especially when I was mad about classical guitar, was the Bartok string duos,” he says. “I would listen to and try to play these beautiful Bartok things. So I had that kind of harmony in my playing, to some extent.
“Bartok would take it much farther out to add a ninth rather than a third — that kind of thing. So it fit with my mental musical landscape at the time, and it was very natural for me to play that sort of thing.”
Summers says the riff came together quickly in the studio. “When it came to the recording, we got it done on one take, actually,” he told Guitar Player.
While another guitarist might have simply strummed the song’s chords, Summers saw an opportunity to add a defining element — one he believes merits a songwriting credit.
“There’s no way that I would’ve gone in and strummed A, F sharp minor, D and E,” he says, referring to the song’s underlying chords. “What I managed to do with that guitar lick was take it into a very hip other atmosphere that was completely moody and set the song up. Instead of just strumming some really stupid chords, I made something out of it.”
Instead of just strumming some really stupid chords, I made something out of it.”
— Andy Summers
That’s hard to argue with. As Summers recalls, “Every Breath You Take” was nearly tossed out before his riff helped turn it into a worldwide hit.
At the time of his Guitar Player interview, the song had passed two billion streams on Spotify alone. It has since climbed to 3.8 billion.
“Which makes my guitar riff one of the most-played riffs in history,” Summers contends. “Not too shabby.”
Indeed. The riff has become one of the most recognizable in rock history. For Summers, however, the success of “Every Breath You Take” still comes with one unresolved question: why isn’t his contribution reflected in the songwriting credits?
