ACCOUNTANT BY DAY

I had kind of a terrible day in a way. Anyway, I don’t want to talk about my pissiness, so I’d rather discuss something I’ve thought about a lot in the past, which is how the Police don’t have any songs that aren’t psychologically unhealthy in some respect, or at least depressing.

Some of them are pretty obvious.

• Roxanne: Guy meets (or hires) a hooker and falls in love with her at first sight. Demands that she must give up her street life because he wants her to live up to his own moral imperative and will not share her with “another boy”. Psychologically unhealthy.
• Can’t Stand Losing You: Guy who is obsessed with his ex-girlfriend plans to kill himself and wants her to know that without her, “to carry on living doesn’t make no sense” and that “you’ll be sorry when I’m dead, and all this guilt will be on your head”. Incidentally, I think this might be my favorite song by the Police. Psychologically unhealthy. AND depressing.
• Message in a Bottle: Figuratively speaking, a “hundred billion castaways” are “looking for a home” because no one loves them. Sting sends out an SOS to the world, which may or may not ever be answered. Depressing.
• So Lonely: No one has knocked on his door “for a thousand years or more”. No further comment. Depressing.
• Walking on the Moon: Sting hopes his “leg don’t break” while perambulating on the lunar surface. Probably because his HMO sucks or something. This one is actually just kind of weird, rather than depressing or psychologically unhealthy.
• Don’t Stand So Close To Me: A young teacher is plagued by the sexual advances by a schoolgirl who is “half his age” and the song makes liberal reference to the book “Lolita”. Aside from being psychologically unhealthy, the song is confusing. I can never decide whether the girl actually seduced the teacher or not. Also, I can’t decide how old the teacher is. He is “young”, but she is half his age. Assuming this is not just artistic license, my guess is she has to be 13 and he is 26. Otherwise he’s too old to be “young” or she’s too prepubescent to be interested.
• De Do Do Do Do Da Da Da: Sting feels that poets, priests and politicians want to rape everyone with their logic and that is wrong. Because rape is mentioned, it sounds more psychologically unhealthy. Also, weird.
• King of Pain: Sting is sad because nothing good ever happens to him, so he lists a lot of bad things to make himself feel better by comparison; an Oedipal king with no eyes, skeletons choking on bread, a fox being murdered, a dead salmon, a seagull with a broken back, etc. Oh, and the sun has a melanoma or something. Depressing. Psychologically unhealthy.
• Wrapped Around Your Finger: Sting is apprenticed to someone whose jewelry he wants to steal. And he will turn his master’s “flesh to alabaster” so probably arson is involved. The song seems disturbingly sexual although I couldn’t say why. Psychologically unhealthy.

Some of them are less obvious, to some people anyway. I just tend to assume anything associated with Sting or the Police is like an instruction manual on how not to live your life.

• Every Breath You Take: This song is about a stalker. Possibly the same guy from “Can’t Stand Losing You”, although I think that dude winds up dead. Lots of people think this song is romantic because apparently the thought of having someone constantly aware of everything you do suffices for true love. Psychologically Unhealthy.
• Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic: A guy falls in love with a girl he doesn’t know very well and he really wants to be with her. So he does the logical thing and says nothing to her, ever. For a thousand rainy days. Even if you lived someplace like the UK or Washington where it rains every day, that would be at least 2.74 years. So quite a while. Every day he considers calling her up to “ask her if she’ll marry me, in some old fashioned way”. But he has indicated that his “life before was tragic” which probably means he was unlucky in love. So what makes him think a marriage proposal is more appropriate than, say, an invitation to go get coffee? Lots of people think this is a sweet and romantic song too. But it’s still got that mental ward stench on it. Psychologically unhealthy.

The moral of this story is: a) I love the Police and b) they are weird people and c) especially Sting is weird.