STEWART COPELAND

I'm listening to the Live album, disc 2, and have either just had an epiphany or a meltdown:

Is the bassline for the "EBYT" verse the same as for "Stand By Me" (but in a different key)?

sting has all but acknowledged this himself over the years....

and it's nothing new really. 'so lonely' - acknowledged by the band as being borrowed from bob marley. that chord progression is about the most common you'll find in rock: "fall at your feet" by crowded house, "with or without you" by U2, and at least 17 songs by every puling little skate-punk band in the world.

Thanks for the confirmation, tj7.

Not criticizing in the least -- you're absolutely right that it's one of the most common progressions. Hell, even I can play it. I just can't believe it took me 20 years to notice it. Thanks!

(In a similar vein: http://youtube.com/watch?v=JdxkVQy7QLM )

Now that I think about it, they're probably in the same key...
Laz

Seems to me, DM, that Rob Paravonian has a bad case of Earworm... and Pachelbel won.

Love it, mardee.

Well the proof is here :

www.myspace.com/jopublik

bleh...

what do you mean "key"...aren't notes there to tell you which widget to whack?

[quote="george"]Well the proof is here : www.myspace.com/jopublik[/quote]

Sweet, George! I love it! Really nice job.
(I'm such a tool for not having noticed this decades ago.)

Does SBM end up being in the same key already as Laz suggests? Or did you have to pitch it? (I don't have any SBM recordings on me, so I'm going on memory.)

Gina, I think you're thinking of which mole to whack.

Mmmm:

Nahhhh, I don´t think these mixes on my space george linked, are really derangements of The Police. Just some copy-paste of different songs.

This guy is not improving anything...

Everything is already said and done in our world history, but it doesn´t really matter at all.

The value is the way to improve and recount the same things...


The Police and Stewart Copeland have this master

You know...I haven't read Sting's autobiography that he put out a few years ago, but I have read online about some of what's in it, and I think it's actually quite possible the song is really about his mother...aside from a couple of "baby baby"s in there to throw people off, it makes a lot more sense if you think of it in that context...

Interesting take, W&S. Do you mean EBYT a la Pink Floyd's "Mother"?

Who do you pinpoint as the speaker and audience? I.e., do you see the speaker of EBYT as a mother character (the audience being her child) or the speaker as a child addressing a mother character?

(Of course, one of the beauties of the song is the ambiguity of the speaker and audience, the open possibility of each being anyone and everyone.)

Broken Music actually only covers up to Outlandos in Sting's life. That being said he did witness his mother having an affair (he was very young and didn't put it all together until years later) so I guess there could be some lingering sentiment from that in EBYT. Everything I've read about that song though says it was about his divorce from Frances - the viewpoint thing thing you guys are talking about is interesting in that context though: Sting was of course having an affair with Trudy (close friend of Frances). Obviously, I don't know any of the parties involved but if you're the one doing the cheating it seems like the jilted one would be the obsessed one and not the other way around. Did he feel that from Frances? Beats me of course but what the hell...that's my psychoanalysis for the day.

BTW: Pretty good book. Not as good as Andy's but it shows Sting to be...Sting: Smart, a bit pretentious, takes himself too seriously at times, funny, insightful and a damn good musician and genius song writer. He can also write a good narrative. The stories about the Copeland clan are worth the price of the book alone.

>>>Who do you pinpoint as the speaker and audience? I.e., do you see the speaker of EBYT as a mother character (the audience being her child) or the speaker as a child addressing a mother character?<<<

Clearly, it would be Sting speaking to his mother. It's also interesting that Andy's song "Mother" appears on the same album...and could just as easily be interpreted the same way. I don't know how much Andy knew about Sting's childhood, though.

>>>That being said he did witness his mother having an affair (he was very young and didn't put it all together until years later) so I guess there could be some lingering sentiment from that in EBYT.<<<

I think what I remember reading is that she continued to be unfaithful throughout his childhood, and at one point ran off with this other guy, and then came back, and Sting was aware of what was going on the whole time.