Synchronicity--Album Quiz #5

Answer: True

In his 2007 book "Lyrics," Sting explains that his reading of Arthur Koestler's writings, which had influenced him during the recording of The Police's previous album "Ghost in the Machine," led him to study the ideas of Carl Jung, including the idea of "synchronicity," Jung's term for his "concept of meaningful coincidence." However, the booklet accompanying The Police's box set collection "Message in a Box" claims that Sting's interest in Jung is also attributable to Sting's experiences with psychotherapy, which Sting had undergone because of recent hardships in his life, including a divorce. Ray Nikart in his 1984 book "Sting and The Police" mentions that Jung's idea about "synchronicity"--"the connection between different events happening in different places at the same time"--was a most appropriate title for this fifth album.

He claims that Sting had explained that the dynamic of the band consisted of three different egos very driven to achieve each one's separate agenda, yet they had managed to come together to record this album.

Answer: Three different colored paint stripes, each one containing images of a different band member

In Ray Nikart's 1984 book "Sting and The Police," Sting says, ". . . [W]e each have our own contributions to make. That was brought out on the album cover, where my idea was for each of us to have a separate strip and have the freedom photographically to do whatever we as individuals wanted, without knowing what the other two had planned. We'll find out when the album comes out it it's synchronistic or not." Usually, the album's cover was a white or black background with three stripes--one red, one yellow, and one blue--that looked as though they were three different strokes from a wide paint brush. Each stripe or stroke contained various images of only one member from the band--Stewart, Andy, and Sting. Furthermore, "each copy of the LP had a unique color scheme and a distinct arrangement of photographs randomly placed together in the 'synchronous' fashion Sting had described." The colors are significant because they are, of course, the primary colors; the mixture of these three colors creates all the other colors, and in terms of light, the combination of all colors is white light.

In other words, three unique people from three different backgrounds merged in one place to create the magic that is called The Police.

Answer: 1983

According to Ray Nikart in his 1984 book "Sting and The Police," the band felt that their "sound had been imitated so widely at this point" that "they had to come up with something unique." Sting reportedly said, "It is important that this album be different . . .

The new album is about having a personal voice. All of us got the chance to say things quietly and quite emotionally. I think these lyrics are the best I've done." Sting wrote many of these songs in Golden Eye, Ian Fleming's old home in Jamaica, and the album was recorded on the island of Montserrat.

It would achieve praise from both public and critics alike. "The New York Times" even compared it to The Beatles' "Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." The album went on to knock Michael Jackson's "Thriller" out of first place in both Billboard's Pop Albums and Top 200 charts.

It won a Grammy for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal. VH1 ranked "Synchronicity" as the 50th greatest album of all time, and it placed number 455 on "Rolling Stone" magazine's "500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

Answer: Every Breath You Take

In 1983, the song was number one on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart for eight weeks and the UK Singles Chart for four weeks. It also topped the Billboard Top Rock Tracks chart for nine weeks. At the 1984 Grammys, Sting, who wrote the song, won for "Best Song of the Year," and The Police won for "Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal." The song also ranks as #84 on "Rolling Stone" magazine's "500 Greatest Songs of All Time." It's #25 on Billboard's "Hot 100 All-Time Top Songs." The song was so successful, according to Wikipedia, that some have estimated that it is responsible for "between a quarter and a third of Sting's music publishing income." While many consider the song to be a very romantic one and many couples have even included it in their wedding ceremonies, Sting argues that the tune is no love song.

In Ray Nikart's 1984 book "Sting and The Police," Sting says the following: "I find the 'I'll-be-watching-you' motif quite frightening. Perhaps the song was a synchronistic prophecy, because as a people, we've all gotten to Orwell's "1984" a year early . . . .

As for the song, I think it's shadowy, evil, and insidious, and the fact that it's been at the top of the American record charts proves the point . . . . People don't know what they're hearing! It's absolute poison." Later in Sting's 2007 book "Lyrics," Sting writes, "I make no claims for any originality in the song. It shares a chord sequence with a million other songs, the melody is nursery-rhyme simple, as are the lyrics, and yet the song has a kind of power. I'd like to think that power lies in its ambiguity, in its being both seductive and sinister. . . . When I finally became aware of this symmetry, I was forced to write an antidote: "If You Love Somebody Set Them Free" (a hit single from Sting's first solo album).

Answer: Synchronicity I

"Spiritus mundi" refers to the world mind or collective unconscious, the idea that all minds or souls may be connected to one vast intelligence so that all of the individual lesser minds share similar universal images, symbols, and archetypes. This idea was, of course, important in Jungian philosophy, but it is also an idea that was popular with the Irish poet William Butler Yeats, who in his poem "Second Coming" refers to "spiritus mundi."

Answer: Murder by Numbers

In his 2007 book "Lyrics," Sting writes, "Andy brought a set of very jazzy and sophisticated chords into the studio one day, and I asked him if I could write some lyrics to fit them. Then I took myself on a long walk up to a volcano on top of the island [Montserrat] with a tape of the chords playing in my head. . . .

The words formed in my head and that pungent smell of sulfur continued to cling to the song: Jimmy Swaggart, the TV evangelist, publicly cited it as an example of the devil's work.

He condemned it colorully while entirely missing its irony and its satirical intent." Really--who thought Sting was serious when he sang, "It's murder by numbers, one, two, three / It's as easy to learn as your ABC"?

Answer: King of Pain

"King of Pain," written by Sting, reached #3 in the US charts and #1 in Billboard's Top Tracks charts for five weeks. It was The Police's most successful single, following "Every Breath You Take," in the United States. In the United Kingdom, the song reached only #17.

In the book "Lyrics," published in 2007, Sting writes: "I was sitting moping under a tree in the garden, and as the sun was sinking toward the western horizon, I noticed that there was a lot of sunspot activity. I turned to Trudie [his wife]. 'There's a little black spot on the sun today.' She waited expectantly, not really indulging my mood but tolerant. 'That's my soul up there,' I added gratuitously. Trudie discreetly raised her eyes to the heavens. 'There he goes again, the king of pain.'"

Answer: Mother

"The telephone is ringing. / Is that my mother on the phone? / The telephone is screaming. / Won't she leave me alone?" This song, composed completely by Andy Summers, is also "sung" by him as well. Wikipedia notes that the "frantic guitar line" is "reminiscent of Robert Fripp (with whom Summers had previously recorded)." In Andy Summers's own memoir "One Train Later," he writes: "It is a psycho rendition in seven/four . . . . Sting actually loves this song and it makes it onto the album (though, of course, I have to sing it myself). I have a small amount of anxiety about my mum's hearing this for the first time and I warn her about it, but when she does hear it she laughs her head off, thinking it a hoot."

Answer: Synchronicity II

In his 2007 text "Lyrics," Sting writes, "This song was an attempt to link a tale of suburban alienation with symbolic events at a distance, i.e., the monster emerging from a Scottish lake and a domestic melodrama. I was trying to dramatize Jung's theory of meaningful coincidence, but it was a rocking song nonetheless!" "Synchronicity II" made extensive use of audio feedback and is the hardest rock song on the album.

It reached #16 in the US charts and #17 in the UK. Lyrically, it is one of Sting's masterpieces.

Answer: O My God

At the end of "O My God," Sting sings, "Do I have to tell the story / Of a thousand rainy days since we first met? / It's a big enough umbrella / But it's always me that ends up getting wet," words that are also found in the second verse of "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic" as well as the fading words at the end of the song.

Interestingly, Sting would sing the same lyrics again at the end of the song "Seven Days," which he composed for his solo album "Ten Summoner's Tales." In his 2007 book "Lyrics," Sting explains, "This song ["O My God"] started something of a tradition with me, where I would quote lines from previous songs in the coda.

The effect seemed to be disarming and humorous and perhaps unconsciously pointing out that all of these songs are one song really--modular, mutable, and not too serious." On the other hand, it's difficult to see that "O My God" isn't so serious, for it is a song about the disconnection the singer feels exists between him and God, the uncertainty of any greater power out there, and the desire that, if there is something out there, it would "take the space between us / And fill it up some way." According to Wikipedia, this "jazziest song on the album" is an altered version of an earlier Police song "Three O'Clock Shot," a song never released in publication but often bootlegged from live performances.

Answer: Miss Gradenko

"Miss Gradenko" is about a woman caught up in dangerous politics of the bureaucracy of the former USSR. The speaker of the song seems to be someone who feels he is having to choose his career or "the system" or "the party" over his feelings for her.

Answer: Walking in Your Footsteps

This song definitely represents the growth of influence of "world music" on rock music during this time. It also reflects the self-destructive path our world seems to be on. In Sting's 2007 book "Lyrics," he writes, "There's a picture of me taken by Duane Michaels in the Museum of Natural History in New York. I'm standing inside the rib cage of a dinosaur.

It struck me that we were clearly related, albeit separated by a few million years." You can see this picture on some of the "Synchronicity" album covers.

Answer: Tea in the Sahara

The song's lyrics tell a story that was told within a story. Paul Bowles's "Sheltering Sky" contains a scene in which one character tells the story represented by "Tea in the Sahara." Sting recounts, "It involves three sisters who have only one ambition: to drink tea in the Sahara.

They dance for money in the cafes of Ghardia, but they are always sad because the Algerian men they dance for are ugly and they don't pay enough money for the sisters to indulge their ambition. One day a handsome young man asks them to dance, he tells them about his home in the desert, and then he leaves.

They have all fallen in love with him. They save enough money to buy a teapot and some cups, and they set out for the desert to find him. The story ends tragically, of course [meaning they are deceived, they do not find the man they love, and they die in the desert]."

Answer: Wrapped Around Your Finger

The song begins with "You consider me the young apprentice / Caught between the Scylla and Charybdis," two mythological ocean beings Odysseus must choose between during his journey home from the Trojan wars. Of course, he wants to face neither but must choose a route home that will bring him into contact with one or the other.

It is an older "catch 22." Later, the singer remarks, "Mephistopheles is not your name / But I know what you're up to just the same." Mephisto is the devil Faust consorts with during his soul-trading deal for knowledge and power.

In "Lyrics," Sting's 2007 book, he writes, "This song is vaguely alchemical and probably about a friend of mine, a professional psychic and my tutor n tarot, with bits of Doctor Faustus and 'The Sorcerer's Apprentice' thrown into the pot for good measure." As a single release, "Wrapped Around Your Finger" reached #8 in the United States and #7 in the United Kingdom.

Answer: Murder by Numbers

The song was originally the B-side to the 45 single release of "Every Breath You Take" (another reason not to mistake that number one single for a love song), but then ended up as an extra song on the cassette and CD releases of the "Synchronicity" album.

It was never released on the LP version of the album. Furthermore, "Murder by Numbers" was tagged on to the end of the play list of the cassette and CD releases; thus, the applause sounds more like an ending to the entire album and perhaps even the end of The Police itself.